


On Feathered Wings

by earthtoalley



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Apocalypse, Coming of Age, Depression, Drug Use, Gen, Minor Violence, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthtoalley/pseuds/earthtoalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassiel, an angel, has taken to walking the Earth, studying the humans he has been charged with protecting with casual interest. As his time on Earth lengthens, he finds himself questioning the Heavenly Host and everything it stands for. His brothers and sisters meet with him throughout his time on Earth to try and turn him from his intended path, but with war on the horizon, will family be enough to restore his faith?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Came To Learn

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very rough first draft. Any and all constructive criticism is welcome, since I'll likely go back and edit the butt off this thing once I've actually finished it.

A bitter chill hung in the air as the first few flakes of snow fell on the bustling city of Toronto, the powdery white flakes sifting through the air like icing sugar as they danced on the breeze. What little had settled on the ground glinted lightly in the pale morning light, snow-laden clouds blocking out the harsh light of the sun. To the people walking around the city streets, this was just another day; there were bills to be paid, appointments to make, jobs to work, families to feed. The bleak prospect of it all, cuttingly severe in how mundane it was, was enough to make you sick. Or rather, it would have been had the people on the streets known more than what was occurring inside their own personal bubbles.

The snow itself went largely unnoticed; the snowfall wasn’t particularly heavy, after all, and was nothing to get concerned about. A handful of excited children might point out of their classroom windows in excitement and beg their teachers to let them play outside, to let them build snowmen and hurl snowballs at each other, despite the fact that the settled snow was still barely more than just a light dusting of the icy white powder. Businessmen and women, all trussed up in power suits, Bluetooth headsets plugged into their ears and protruding forwards like great digital tusks might turn their gaze towards the sky and complain that the weather will delay them for this meeting, or that coffee break, or whatever other corporate affairs crammed into their busy schedules, but it won’t. Not really. Not this early on in the day, when the horizon was still clear and the roads still largely unblemished.

If you happened to glance upon the street, you could almost be mistaken for thinking the people on it hadn’t noticed the weather around them – and perhaps some of them hadn’t, too deeply immersed in their phones, and their iPods, and whatever gadget was all the rage that week – save for one man, standing rigid and still on the corner of the street. His head was turned towards the sky, snow gathering in his brunette hair as he watched the snow on its descent from the heavy clouds littering the sky above him. The people around him barely seemed to notice him, drifting past him like ghosts in a sea of regrets and abandoned hopes, but his invisibility didn’t seem to faze him.

He held out a hand hesitantly, reaching out to try and catch one of the falling flakes, the brilliant whiteness of it a stark contrast to the olive hue of his skin. No one around him seemed to notice or care that the snow in his hand showed no sign of melting, it simply rested quite contentedly in the curve of his palm as he brought it closer to his face, head tilting down to look at it curiously. He could feel the chill against his fingertips, but it didn’t bother him, it wasn’t like he could feel the cold anyway, though the dusky pink blush across his cheeks would suggest otherwise. A thick, red, woollen scarf was wrapped loosely around his neck, though he didn’t pay it much attention. He was certain it was a present from someone, but he couldn’t recall who, but standing there on the street corner, the snow cascading around him, he could have cared less.

With pursed lips, he blew the snowflake from his hand, watching as it sailed towards the ground to join the rapidly increasing snow at his feet. He turned his gaze towards the sky again, watching as the snowfall increased, white specks falling from the heavens. It almost felt strange to think he had existed in heaven but a few weeks ago, and yet here he stood, walking amongst mankind at his leisure. They were his to observe, his to study, his to learn about, for his name was Cassiel and he was an angel of the Lord.

For all the ownership he claimed of his body, it wasn’t quite his. Had he intended simply to watch mankind, he would have watched from the heavens, safe and secure in his home and in his own form, but instead he had chosen to walk among them, to _truly_ experience them, and for that he needed a human host. A vessel, so to speak, to carry his essence amongst mankind without blinding them with his brilliance, and when he had stumbled upon a man named Miller James, his blood laden with celestial intent, all the pieces had slotted together. One thing had always puzzled Cassiel about his chosen vessel, though.

Miller James was a religious man, that much was obvious given his eagerness to voice his consent to act as Cassiel’s vessel, but if the angel looked deep within the man’s soul, he could see doubts. Whispers of questions a man of faith shouldn’t even _think_ to ask, and it troubled him. It troubled him that something so brilliant, so absolute, could even cause a glimmer of doubt to filter through human minds. Brilliant things happened every day; new life was granted, flowers burst forth into bloom, people were healed of their afflictions and found the strength to pull themselves through the worst of time. Surely that was proof enough that his Father existed?

The idea of questioning his faith – and Lucifer and the rest of his fallen brethren were proof enough that angels _could_ question their faith – seemed strange to him, foreign and unwelcoming. It send a chill down his borrowed spine, a sensation he still hadn’t quite gotten used to, and left him feeling like a great stone was residing in his gut. Needless to say, Cassiel tried to refrain from thinking about it.

Cassiel himself was a good little soldier; always did what he was told, never questioned his orders, or his family, or his Father. Everything happened for a reason, and who was he to question his Father’s intent? He simply had faith in His plans, and saw to it that everything went as planned. All of his siblings did. Not out of fear, or respect, or loyalty, but simply because they loved Him and wanted to make him proud, wanted to spread his word and his love to all that would hear it, though Cassiel was not particularly skilled in that field.

He was the patron angel of solitude, and as such most of his work was done alone. Oftentimes he gravitated towards those that were alone, those that knew the familiar bite of loneliness, but they were never all that willing to listen to his Father’s word. Some of them found Him on their own, and gradually they slipped out of Cassiel’s charge as they found companionship, but for the most part, he spent his days alone. He would be surrounded by siblings, that was always the case, but even in a crowded room, the young angel still felt alone. Perhaps that was simply the curse of his charge.

Solitude had its perks, however. It gave him space to think, and it filled him with a behemoth sense of curiosity. The world was his oyster, and there were countless worlds out there to explore. Once, in his youth, he had spent three decades studying butterflies. He could reel off every species known to man – and a few that man had yet to discover – list them by wing colour, wingspan, lifespan, mating pattern, countless different criteria, and still he had felt that sense of curiosity. Back then, his duties had been miniscule. There were relatively few humans, and they were always bunched together in such tight knit little groups that solitude was a thing rarely heard of. He had had countless years to indulge his curiosity, taking decades to study every tiny intricate little detail of whichever species he had chosen to learn about. Humanity, somehow, had never entered his curiosity.

Humanity had always been his Father’s greatest creation; he had never thought to study them. It almost seemed like he was intruding on something, as if he were judging his Father’s ability, as if he were trying to pick faults in them when really, Cassiel simply liked to observe. His influence on the world was hardly an impressive one, and as such, the angel had grown accustomed to not interfering. He was happier to watch in silence than to meddle, unlike some of his siblings. At his very core, Cassiel simply wanted to learn all there was to know about his Father’s creations, from the tiniest organism to the largest of animals.

After four millennia of life, of learning and exploring, Cassiel had exhausted almost every subject there was at his disposal, save for one. So, with an air of new found bravery, he had set his sights on Earth and her people, and he was here to learn.


	2. A Noisy Species

The first day Cassiel had spent amongst humanity had been a strange one. He had never paid much attention to their habits or their customs, and part of him had still been expecting them to be the jumpy little creatures that used to chew on coffee beans before they found a better use for them. He had witnessed glimpses of humanity’s evolution, of course he had, but usually he had been more preoccupied with hunting down a certain species of snail or bee or whatever had taken his fancy that century. The towering skyscrapers, ever glinting lights and corporate machine had only ever been background noise to an otherwise beautiful world. To see so much of that world covered with giant structures of glass and metal and cement troubled him. There was so much nature around them, so much beauty and serenity and sheer perfection, that he couldn’t understand _why_ they would want to obscure it like that. Why they would want to cover the earth with great streaks of concrete and send great metal automobiles hurtling along them, smoke billowing from the rear of them - not that the humans could see just how much destruction they wrought.

Admittedly, that had discouraged him a little. How could something so hell bent on destruction be his Father’s greatest creation? He had given them the Earth as a gift, and from what Cassiel could see, they were slowly destroying it piece by piece. But he resolved to give them a fair chance; perhaps there was reason for all the chaos.

He had taken to the streets of Toronto - his destination hadn’t been a particularly conscious decision, he had just drifted on the wind until he found somewhere with a suitable vessel - not really caring _which_ street it was; it wasn’t as if he needed them to navigate by, after all. The snow was falling more heavily now, enough to disrupt the lives of the average Joes milling around him. The angel hadn’t yet revealed himself, the idea of being visible and capable of social interaction seeming too much like interfering for his liking, but he could still feel the full presence of life on the busy street. People shuffled from place to place, ducking into shops, stopping to greet their friends, sipping at coffees and chattering away on their mobile phones.

In fact, one of the first observations Cassiel had made about mankind from the few hours he had spent in Toronto was that they were such a noisy species. The streets were filled with the roaring cacophony of rumbling engines, the faint flutters of music drifting from inside shops and restaurants before ultimately getting lost in the larger soundscape, the near deafening murmur of social interaction. Everything was noise, and lights, and scents, and it flooded Cassiel’s senses like some kind of drug, the side effects of which he still wasn’t sure of.

It took him several hours to process all this new information; his celestial intelligence working overtime to try and sort it all into accurate categories the way he could with butterflies and oak trees and small aquatic mammals, but there was no discernible pattern. He couldn’t understand _why_ humanity would choose to launch such an assault on their senses on a daily basis. How did they exist in it without it exhausting their spirit like it had his? Were they immune to its effects, or did they simply not care? Eventually Cassiel reasoned that it must perplex them as much as it did him, and that they simply preferred not to think about it.

His attention turned to the life around him after that, resolving to do his best to ignore the maelstrom of sensory assaults and instead focus on humanity itself. He could worry about studying their culture later, once he knew more about the species itself. They were such a complex species, after all. When last he had taken notice of them, they had only recently discovered how to make tools to help ease the burdens of early life, though part of him had often wondered if perhaps they hadn’t made the discovery on their own and had been given a helpful nudge in the right direction by one of his older siblings. Regardless, they had come a long way in their four millennia of life, and Cassiel had to admire them for that despite their apparent destructive nature.

He walked along the street, watching for any particular subject that caught his eye. Humanity was unique, and brilliant, and worthy of so much love and devotion, he knew that much, but walking amongst them, watching them live out their lives, they seemed so… average. So ordinary and mundane. There were some that caught his interest for a while, though.

The most notable had been an elderly man, spine bent like a question mark, who had shuffled along in the snow, mindful of those around him. He had even tipped his hat to a few, snow falling from the brim of his hat where it had gathered there like frosting, and Cassiel could only assume they were acquaintances of his. Cassiel watched him shuffle along at his own slow pace, and sorry looking bouquet of flowers tucked under his arm, the snow wilting the already weak looking petals and bending the stems as they drooped in the chill. The angel followed him, red scarf tucked into his vessel’s jacket to keep it out of the way as the wind picked up a little, buffeting the man back a few paces, but still he kept walking, never stopping on his journey longer than necessary til he reached a small cemetery.

The snow crunched beneath his feet as he made his way through the graveyard, great stone monoliths dotted around the edges of the place, the graves of the rich and well-respected. The man, however, was headed for a more central plot, a simple marble headstone poking out of the ground. A small, crumpled bouquet of roses, the petals black and curled in on themselves, sat peacefully on the grass in front of it, a few of the dying buds falling off in the breeze. Cassiel watched as he shakily bent down on one knee, picking up the decaying flowers before replacing them with the new bouquet. Loneliness radiated from him like light from a flame in a pitch black room, leaving itself the sole focus, and Cassiel found it almost hard to concentrate on what was happening around him, so utterly consumed by the man’s solitude.

"Sorry I haven’t been by in a while, Edie."

The man’s shaky voice broke him from his reverie, gaze turning to the headstone again. He was too far away to make out the script engraved into the stone, but from the man’s actions paired with the sense of solitude emanating from him, Cassiel could only assume it was the grave of a loved one.

"My hip’s been playing up again, and you know I never liked those buses, not even when we were kids," the man continued, a small sad laugh catching the tail end of his sentence. "I miss you, doll."

Cassiel watched as the man knelt in the snow, listened as he talked to his beloved, before finally getting to his feet again, joints clicking in unison as he moved. And while the man left, Cassiel remained, staring down at the grave with a sense of near confusion. Why bring flowers to someone that wasn’t present to enjoy them? Someone that couldn’t reach out to feel the soft petals, breathe in the heavenly scent. It puzzled him to no end, but he restored the flowers to their former glory, if only out of respect for the flowers.

As he made his way back to the street he had come from – or at least Cassiel _thought_ it was the street he had been observing previously – his mind began to wander. Humans were such frail little things, and they needed so much to survive for such little time. They needed food, water, shelter, companionship, and perhaps it was simply because he didn’t need such things to survive, but Cassiel couldn’t help but feel it made them undeservingly vulnerable. If just one of those things was taken away from them, even the most miniscule and insignificant of things, they would be helpless, exposed to all the horrors of the world, and ultimately, it would kill them. It almost seemed cruel to make them so dependent on outside sources, but perhaps that was simply something he wasn’t supposed to understand. Perhaps his Father had wanted a species that had to fight to survive, if only to be proud of how resilient they were. They had lasted over three millennia, after all; that had to count for something.

The maelstrom of sensory assaults launched itself at him in full force as he rejoined the bustling life of the Toronto streets, and it knocked him back a little, needing to take a few moments to himself to compose himself, to regain control of his overloaded senses. If it had taken him just a second longer, or even a fraction of a second, he would have missed what would perhaps be his most interesting subject of study. He was still reeling a little from the sheer volume of sounds still assaulting his ears, and at first she had seemed of little importance, just a young woman making her way from point A to point B. But then she had paused, attention focused on a shabby looking man perched on the ground, a ragged cap placed in front of him with a few sparse coins scattered in it. That had caught Cassiel’s interest, though admittedly the man on the ground had more of his interest then. The paved streets hardly seemed like the most desirable of places to rest, after all, and even more so with the rising level of snow blanketing the man in cold.

As Cassiel made his way towards them, still unseen by the people walking around him, he saw the man on the ground point at something hidden down an alleyway. Strange alarm bells began to ring in his head as he watched the young woman take a step towards the darkened corridor, but his concern was unfounded, he discovered, as three equally shabby looking men and women emerged from its depths to join their seated comrade. The young woman removed her hat, the snow already clinging to her strawberry blonde hair, and offered it instead to one of the women from the alleyway, her own head exposed to the elements, her hair matted and dishevelled.

The redhead turned, heading away from the ragtag group of people, and admittedly Cassiel was a little curious as to why she had given up her hat so freely. He understood the morality of being a Good Samaritan sure enough, but the young lady had given it up without a second thought. He was still musing over it when he caught sight of her again, a tray of cardboard cups in her hand, steam rising from the plastic lids covering each cup, and a paper bag tucked under her arm. He watched as she handed out the cups to the four strangers, who he could only assume were homeless or in some kind of disadvantaged situation given their appearance, before handing them the paper bag, the seated gentleman pulling some kind of pastry out of the bag before passing it to one of his fellows.

That truly caught Cassiel’s interest. Of all the humans he had witnessed that day, none had acted so selflessly. Sure, some had displayed acts of kindness to strangers, but none of them had seemed particularly down on their luck, and the actions felt more like common courtesy than genuine niceties. But this woman, all fiery hair and soft, hazel eyes had acted simply because she thought it was the right thing to do. Honestly, the angel found it refreshing that such qualities existed in people. He reached out towards her, a hand gently resting on her shoulder though not that she would have felt it – and admittedly part of him almost felt bad at the sense of solitude she would experience for the rest of the day from his touch, but he needed to know her name – and took his opportunity to glimpse the faintest fragments of her soul, burning bright and fierce and filled with good intentions. It was exhilarating, filling his form with a sense of joy he had never experienced before, enthusiasm and sheer bliss coursing round his borrowed veins.

And then she was gone. He had been so distracted by that tiny fragment of her soul that he had seen that he had let her slip from his grasp, her amber hair nowhere to be seen in the distance, and the people she had helped long since abandoned their resting spot. The street was all but empty, the sky a deep inky black as the lights still flashed and the snow still fell, but at least he had her name. Béatrice Tremblay.


	3. Forgive Me, Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge depression/suicidal thoughts triggers for this chapter. Just a warning.

Two months passed before Cassiel found his next subject to study. The incident with Béatrice had left him so puzzled and so perplexed that he had wasted days trying to find her again, to try and discern some semblance of sense for her actions. He had waited on that same street corner for days, determined and unmoving, but she hadn’t returned, for reasons unbeknownst to him. Part of him had wondered if something had happened to her, but he hadn’t felt his brother Azrael’s presence in the city, so nothing particularly dramatic could have happened.

Before Cassiel knew it, six months had passed. He still wasn’t used to the passage of time on Earth, even after all this time. Time in heaven moved so slowly; a few weeks on Earth could last a few months in heaven, though Cassiel could hardly complain. It was _heaven_ ; you would hardly _want_ it to speed by like a runaway freighter. All the same, it made adjusting… difficult. Cassiel was used to days lasting the longest of times, but down there on Earth, days flashed by in the blink of an eye. It hardly surprised him that humans had such brief life spans, given how immensely fast time slid by them. He wondered if they could feel themselves aging with every day that passed, or whether they spent an age feeling youthful until one day it finally caught up with them, like the old man in the cemetery.

Cassiel made his way to one of the city’s churches, figuring if anyone could answer him, it would be his Father, despite the fact that less than six of his brethren had ever laid eyes on Him, let alone heard His voice. Being in such a religious place set Cassiel at ease, however. Knowing that his Father was listening was enough for him, though truthfully he had never truly known if God was _ever_ listening.

He sat at a pew in the far row of the building, watching and observing those inside the church, the slick, varnished wood of the pew smooth against his borrowed form. His fingers absently traced patterns in the wood as he listened to the people around him praying, snow steadily melting on their coats and shoes. There was a plump young woman at the front of the procession, coiffed red hair tumbling about her face as she prayed. She was whispering, and admittedly Cassiel had trouble hearing her, but he was certain he caught his brother Michael’s name slip past her lips from time to time. The angel leant forward in his seat, elbows resting against his knees as he strained to hear the woman.

"Please, Saint Michael, keep my Vincent safe," she murmured, her voice breathy and shaking, just as the man in the cemetery’s had been. "He’s too stubborn to come here and pray himself, he thinks he’s invincible," she paused, and Cassiel saw her arm move, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, "please keep him safe, I beg you. Amen."

And with that, she got to her feet, tears still rolling down her cheeks as she made her way out of the church. Cassiel had never understood why people prayed to his siblings; they were God’s warriors, tools of His brilliance, they weren’t worthy or deserving of such reverence. Even if they had been, they rarely acted upon the prayers that reached their ears. There were always things to be done in heaven; fledglings to be trained, demons to be fought, battle strategies to plan, miracles to coordinate. By the time their duties were done, there were already more at hand. It was that sense of order that made things work so smoothly, like a well oiled machine clad in feathers. Everything down here, by comparison, was chaos, and yet mankind was never granted reprieve. It was almost sadistic.

Cassiel straightened back up, glancing around again as he listened for someone else to focus on. Most of the people praying were doing so for such nonchalant things; world peace, an end to world hunger, companionship, hope. While Cassiel himself had never been prayed to – in fact, he wasn’t sure his name had ever even been recorded in human history – he had often heard his brothers and sisters lamenting the sheer volume of prayers they received asking for such menial yet well-intentioned things when they were powerless to do anything about it. Mankind had been given free will, it was theirs to embrace, theirs to utilise, and the consequences of that fell on their own heads.

Cassiel continued listening to the people around him; some of their prayers spoken, some uttered silently in their heads, though Cassiel heard them all nonetheless. His gaze drifted around the place of worship as he listened, taking in the sights around him. There were great stained glass windows depicting Saints and apostles, each a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours that cast a warm glow about the place when the sun hit the window, even in the cold winter chill. Tucked in the back of each pew, the deep oak of them as warm and inviting as the light being cast down from the windows, was a row of Bibles, their red covers tatty and aged. Cassiel picked one of them up, leafing through the holy book, the well worn pages thin and crinkly against his fingers.

The Bible had always been somewhat of a source of amusement for Cassiel, paired with how devoted people were to it. In his eyes, it was simply a book written by man and trying to pass itself off as the Word of God. It had been Metatron’s duty to record the Word of God, and the Bible just didn’t encapsulate His brilliance or Metatron’s handiwork. And yet all these people, all these vulnerable, fleshy little things, had based some of their earliest existence around it. Truly, they were curious little creatures.

Cassiel looked up from his distraction as he caught a man’s voice, faint and remorseful and impossible to ignore. It took Cassiel a moment to spot him, his voice barely discernible above the noises of all the others in the church, but eventually he spotted him. He was perched at the far end of a pew in the middle of the left column of them, almost as unnoticeable as Cassiel himself. No one seemed to pay him much interest, quietly murmuring away under his breath. Cassiel rose to his feet, hesitantly moving from his position at the back of the room to a pew just a few rows behind the man. The angel could hear him more clearly now, though his prayer was still faint, almost as if he didn’t mean it. As if his heart just wasn’t in it.

His hair, which seemed a little longer than Cassiel had grown used to seeing on human males, hung about his face like a lank curtain, a faint residue of grease lining it, as if it hadn’t been washed in a few days. His head was downcast, hair flopping in front of his eyes, still murmuring away to whoever he supposed was listening.

"I’m sorry, Father," he insisted for what Cassiel believed was the third time. "I’m sorry, but I have no choice. I have to do it."

To say that piqued Cassiel’s interest would be an understatement. The angel could practically feel the excitement crackling under his skin like electricity. Just what did this man have to be so sorry for? What did he have no choice in? The whole premise of humanity had, after all, been choice and free will. Cassiel heard out the end of his prayer, much of the same vague and enticing apologies, until the man signalled the end of his plea for forgiveness with a single, shaky ‘amen’, getting to his feet from where he had moved into a kneeling position on the floor. And naturally, Cassiel had to follow him.

He followed him through the dimly lit streets and through the ankle deep snow all the way back to a tiny flat on the corner of a rundown looking street, the street lamps flickering above the two of them. Mould clung to the walls inside the building, increasing in severity the higher they went til they reached the penultimate floor, towering above the sprawling city below them. The front door, which had a small brass number ‘15’ nailed into the swollen wood, was loose on its hinges, barely taking more than a gentle nudge to open it.

A pile of envelopes were balanced precariously on top of his kitchen counter, looking mysteriously out of place in the otherwise spotless home, near meticulous detail having been paid to ensuring the place was spotless. Cassiel glanced at the pile of envelopes, all of them addressed to a Mr. Carter Smith, who he could only assume was the gentleman he had followed home. Paired with the addressee was a large red stamp on the front of the top most envelope, the word ‘overdue’ glaring at them from the white paper. Carter Smith paid them no attention, though, simply shrugged off his coat and walked into the dank kitchenette. He fiddled with a tiny stereo in the corner of the room, plugged into an already overloaded plug socket which was also powering a toaster and a kettle. A soft, slow rhythm filled the small flat, and Carter shut his eyes in appreciation, swaying gently to the music before he got back to the task at hand, though Cassiel wasn’t entirely sure what that task even was. Much as Carter had piqued his interest before, he was rapidly starting to lose interest in his new subject.

Carter, on the other hand, was blissfully unaware of the angel residing in his kitchen. He let the first song on his CD play out before he gave any signs of movement, slowly preparing himself a small meal; just a plate of pasta and some tomato sauce from a tin. It barely took him ten minutes to cook it, plopping the watery sauce-laden spaghetti onto a plate and carrying it into his small makeshift living room; just an armchair and a dusty old TV that looked like it belonged back in the 90s. Cassiel let out a frustrated sigh as he plonked himself down on the floor as Carter ate in front of the television. For such a promising subject, he was certainly proving to be disappointing.


	4. Such A Shame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, huge triggers for depression/suicide in this chapter.

Cassiel regretted his words but a few hours later. He had all but been ready to consider Carter a failed study and move on to find himself a new subject, when all of a sudden Carter fell almost worryingly still. He was still alive - Cassiel could hear his heartbeat, and his death would have triggered the arrival of his elder brother Azrael by now - but his body was unmoving, plate balancing on his knees. His breathing slowed, and for the first time, Cassiel felt it. The isolation and loneliness that Carter had been fighting so desperately to keep hidden, to keep contained within himself. And hell, if he could keep it from an angel, who _couldn’t_ he keep it from?

The music was still drifting in from the kitchenette, as slow and morbid as it had been before, but now it almost seemed to give Carter some silent sense of purpose as he rose to his feet, plate hesitantly left at the foot of his armchair. He followed the music as if he were in a trance, the rhythm guiding his movements as he walked in time to the beat, striding past the kitchen and into a small bathroom that had previously gone unnoticed by Cassiel. Inside it was as mouldy as the outer hallway had been, the shower curtain more green than white where the bacteria had claimed the damp fabric as its own. Cassiel couldn’t understand why someone would choose to live like that, but perhaps that was what the pile on envelopes had been about. Perhaps this lifestyle wasn’t of Carter Smith’s choosing, but simply the result of what could only be defined as bad luck.

Carter leant over the otherwise spotless bath tub, taking care to avoid touching the shower curtain, and turned on the hot tap, the pipes groaning in complaint before water sputtered out of the tap as he plugged the drain. He pushed the curtain back warily, and slowly stripped himself of his clothes as the music droned on, barely audible above the temperamental flow of water churning from the tap. Steam had started to rise from the tub, but Carter paid it no mind, folding his clothes neatly in his lap as he perched against the rim of the bath, before placing them carefully on top of the toilet. He turned the cold tap a few degrees and made his way over to the mirrored cabinet that hung precariously above the basin. The glass face of it had steamed up, blurring and distorting the man’s reflection.

He stared at his warped reflection for a few moments, the only sounds in the place the still sputtering water and the tinny music coming from the stereo’s aged speakers. The inside of the cabinet, as Cassiel discovered when Carter opened it, was filled with small orange bottles, along with a few spare odds and ends like disposable razors and cheap mouthwash. He held his hand up, fingers ghosting across the labels as if he were browsing a collection of fine wines. The water, still faintly steaming behind him, had almost reached the rim of the tub, despite the sporadic flow of water. That seemed to urge Carter on, his hand closing around one of the bottles – Cassiel didn’t see which – before making his way back over to the bath, turning both the taps off and staring absently at the steam for a few moments.

He wandered back into the kitchen briefly, returning to the bathroom with a large glass of cheap smelling wine, before sinking into the hot water of the bath, the heat causing a flush of red to tinge his skin almost instantly. Steam billowed around him as he took a sip of his wine, unscrewing the cap on the bottle, placing several of the pills inside it in his mouth and swallowing them down with a hearty gulp of wine. He kept the action up until the wine ran out, his actions starting to slow as his hands grew clumsy, his eyelids heavy and the world began to slip away. The water around him was still too warm, a frail attempt to cleanse his sins from his flesh and hopefully his soul, but Cassiel knew all too well that something like that wouldn’t work. His Father was forgiving, that much was true, but He had never been particularly forgiving of those that took their own life. There had been a few circumstances throughout history in which He had allowed the souls of those that had committed suicide to pass through the gates of heaven, but it was very rare, and the souls in question were often already in his Father’s favour.

Carter reached to screw the cap back on the bottle, but his hands felt like they were asleep, and his movements were so, so sluggish, he could barely keep hold of the bottle, let alone anything more complicated than that. The bottle slipped from his grasp, the round white tablets spilling into the water and starting to dissolve. Carter watched the empty pill bottle bob around in the water with tired, distracted eyes as he felt himself start to slip deeper into the water, struggling to keep his eyes open. Cassiel watched as his head slipped under the level of the water, submerging the room into silence, save for the crackly music coming from the stereo which seemed quieter now somehow. A few bubbles rose to the surface of the bath water, and Carter’s limbs flailed around sluggishly, though whether he was trying to pull himself up or keep himself down, Cassiel wasn’t sure. Regardless, it wasn’t his place to interfere, and within a few minutes, Carter was still once more, the steady thump of his heart falling still.

Cassiel knew he should leave before Azrael made an appearance – he had been absent from heaven for nearly three months now, and while his duties weren’t exactly important, even he knew his absence would have been noticed – but some small part of him couldn’t leave without at least trying to understand why Carter Smith had taken his own life, and his best hope of that was to ask Azrael. So the angel waited patiently, listening to the music drone on as the steam in the bath died down. Cassiel looked up from the body in the water as he heard the faint flapping of wings that signalled the arrival of one of his brethren, paired with that familiar sense of family he always felt around his siblings. It left a warmth in his chest that nothing else could quite mimic, and he wondered how their fallen brethren coped without it, though perhaps they felt something similar in the company of others who had fallen.

Cassiel was perched against the rim of the bathtub, where Carter had been sitting just a mere hour before, when Azrael entered the room. His vessel towered over Cassiel’s, a foot in height between them easily, and all six and a half foot of him was squeezed into a freshly pressed black suit, the crisp white shirt beneath it almost the same colour as his complexion. Cassiel couldn’t tell if Azrael’s chosen vessel was intended to frighten or soothe the souls he came to collect, but he sent a shiver down the younger angel’s spine. Cassiel had always been a little afraid of Azrael. Aside from the archangels, Azrael was perhaps one of the oldest angels in creation. Prior to popular belief, things had been dying on Earth long before humans were even thought of, and while animals weren’t technically under his charge, the few links of evolution between ape and what was largely regarded as the first man – something which had come into existence not long after Cassiel’s own creation – had been his to ferry to their judgement.

Azrael glanced at Carter’s lifeless body, dark brown eyes washing over the scene like a hawk, before waving his hand casually, calling forth Carter’s still residing soul. Cassiel had seen Azrael claim souls before, but all the same, the process was still as exhilarating to witness as it had been the first time. Carter rose from the tub, the water remaining still, and stood before Cassiel’s brother, silent acceptance painted on his face.

“Are you death?” Carter questioned, as Azrael passed him a blanket to cover his frail naked form with, a formality they had come to learn humans enjoyed when they had died in such circumstances.

Azrael shook his head. “I am a shepherd,” he said simply, a chill in his voice that spread around the room as he spoke. Power practically crackled against his skin, and Cassiel was sure even Carter would be able to feel it. “I am here to take you on from this life, if you choose to join me.”

“Why wouldn’t I join you?” Carter asked, confusion ripe in his voice.

Azrael glanced behind Carter at Cassiel, though the soul didn’t seem to pick up on his movements. “I can answer your questions on the way, Carter. We have plenty of time.”

Carter seemed to accept that as an answer, and allowed Azrael to hook an arm around his shoulder, Carter’s soul vanishing in a flash of light. Azrael paused briefly, glancing down at the body in the water again before shaking his head.

“Such a shame,” Azrael said, gaze still pointed at the corpse. “In all these years, I have never gotten used to ferrying the young,” he mused, more to himself than to Cassiel, though Cassiel suspected Azrael had something else to say. It wasn’t like his brother to keep things to himself, but he almost seemed hesitant to speak.

“Could he have been saved?” Cassiel asked after a moment, looking to Azrael for an answer.

Azrael shook his head, skin pulled tightly across his vessel’s sharp cheekbones. “He was determined. If he hadn’t succeeded this time, he would have tried again until he got the result he wanted. Such is human life, I suppose,” he said with a shrug.

Cassiel didn’t entirely understand the sentiment, but he nodded in agreement nonetheless, not wanting to seem foolish in front of his big brother. “It isn’t like you to linger this long, brother. Is something wrong?”

"Not yet," Azrael commented, causing a frown to spring onto Cassiel’s features. "I understand you wish to know more about mankind. I would quit while I were ahead if I were you, Cassiel."

Cassiel cocked his head to one side a little in question, a curious expression he had picked up from watching humanity. Unlike his brethren and he, humans relied on more than just their voices to communicate. It wasn’t too dissimilar to something he had seen in wolves, their communication relying on both vocal and physical displays, but human social interaction was so much more complicated. So much more intricate. They each had their own unique quirks – for example, he had witnessed a man that would scratch at the back of his head when he was lying, and a woman whose hands became near manic in their gesticulation when she was excited about something – but they were all somehow universally recognisable. And then, of course, there were the universal expressions and gestures and everything that seemed odd on its own, but somehow came to make perfect sense when it was all jumbled together.

While all of it was new to Cassiel, Azrael had had a great deal of time to witness humanity and their body language. He was practically fluent in it by now, though in his early days he would admit communication had been hard. Angels, after all, did not speak the volume of human languages, they were something they had actively had to learn. Those of their brethren that rarely had dealings with humanity, such as their fallen brother Abaddon or their sister Jophiel, had never had need nor cause to learn the languages, and as they had evolved and grown, each variation as intricate and complex as its derivative, they had simply stopped caring to learn.

For someone as involved as Azrael, however, that knowledge was crucial. A distressed soul would never follow him to their intended destination, choosing instead to linger and their essence fester, and without that trivial yet oh so important communication he had no method of soothing their pain. Azrael was almost certainly the best versed in human languages in all of heaven, if only for his brother Dumah’s skills in the same field.

Cassiel, however, was only fluent in the ancient languages, though he had taken an interest in Hebrew around the dawn of its inception. It had been millennia since he had last spoken it, however, and the only pieces of it he could remember were fragmented greetings and curse words he was almost certain were no longer in circulation. English was something he was only just coming to understand, and it was safe to say he was coming to understand the physical aspects more than the verbal. As much as he could glean from simply listening in, substituting words he recognised from other languages and thinking back to the ever brief and increasingly sporadic linguistic lessons he had received from his elder siblings, the physicality of it seemed to come easier to the young angel.

“Are they so difficult to understand?” Cassiel questioned, head still cocked to one side, and Azrael couldn’t help but mentally compare the look on his brother’s vessel to that of a curious dog. There was that same inquisitive innocence in his eyes, and he could practically imagine the same noises coming from his sibling. It took all Azrael had not to laugh.

“They are not difficult to understand, Cassiel, but I fully believe they were not created with the intention of being understood,” Azrael commented, folding his arms across his chest loosely as he nodded at the body of Carter Smith, which still lay floating in the bathwater, bobbing slightly from the fluctuating buoyancy his corpse provided as water trickled occasionally into the bathwater, the added volume causing it to spill over the rim of the tub for just a moment. “They usually leave a note, usually an apology or some attempt at an explanation, but this one… I have been watching him for a while now; his name has appeared on my list several times before vanishing, as if something were interrupting him and his intent.”

“I wasn’t aware one _could_  interrupt death,” Cassiel murmured, even more confused by the situation.

“Neither was I,” Azrael admitted, “But after the fourth time it occurred, I decided to witness him at the moment his name appeared. What I can only assume was the norm would occur, and he would find a reason to continue his existence, or someone would interrupt him; a phone call, a knock at the door, things of that nature. This time, it would seem, there was nothing to dissuade him.”

“I must admit, brother, I do not understand what this has to do with me.”

“They usually leave a note,” Azrael continued, as if he hadn’t heard Cassiel’s interjection, “They leave them because they feel obligated to explain why they acted as they did to those they leave behind, but often people in this situation believe there is no one that would miss them. Tell me, Cassiel, how does that make sense?”

Cassiel pondered for a while, trying to pick out some form of reasoning out of what little he knew about mankind, but stopped short when he found himself unable to answer his brother’s question. Azrael seemed to take his brother’s silence as an answer, continuing his monologue.

“This one, Carter Smith, left nothing like that, yet something managed to dissuade him all those times before. Is that not the sign of a man that would be missed? No, Cassiel, these humans are complex beings. We were ordered to protect them and to love them, but to try and understand them could lead us to madness.”

“And yet to make no attempt at all is what lead our brothers and sisters to fall,” Cassiel countered, shrinking in on himself a little at the sour look that crossed Azrael’s otherwise stony expression. “Should we not at least try?” he asked meekly, fidgeting on the spot a little.

“We have survived this long without understanding them, have we not?” Azrael asked. “We do not need to understand them to love them, just as they need not be aware of our existence. The very nature of our relationship, after all, is commensal symbiosis. Can you not think of anything more beautiful?”

“Mutualism?” Cassiel suggested, triggering a hearty laugh from his brother.

“You have an admirable ideology, little brother, but it would never work. Humans are incredibly closed minded, never willing to believe anything that they cannot see or feel or analyse with that ‘science’ of theirs is real, and if you continue this venture of yours, I am sure you will find those that  _are_  willing to believe are often shunned by society.” Cassiel would have asked why, had he been given a chance to speak, but it seemed Azrael was in a hurry, rarely giving Cassiel a chance to interject. “Return to heaven and continue your work, Cassiel. That is all I can advise.”

“But you cannot make me?” he queried, to which Azrael shook his head.

“Only Michael or our Father can  _make_  you return, though your absence has yet to be noticed by either of them. They are as busy as ever, and your influence has been spreading across this city, so they have no reason to be alarmed yet.”

Cassiel would never admit it, but he almost felt bad about his influence washing over the city. It almost felt like his presence was a sickness, and he was slowly but steadily infecting everyone he came across. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was his presence that had lead Carter to finally end his life. Wonder if, had he not followed Carter home at the behest of his own insatiable curiosity, the man might have lived to see another day and perhaps found some kind of light in the world to keep him going that little bit longer. A feeling Cassiel could almost describe as guilt washed over him and sat in his vessel’s stomach like a stone; hard, heavy and unrelenting.

“Then I appreciate your advice, Azrael, but I think I will continue my studies until a higher power intervenes,” Cassiel asserted, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. Azrael had always been the most level headed of their siblings – he had to be, given his assigned field, after all – as his presence often soothed those around him, but the elder angel could terrify those around him if he so wish. He certainly terrified Cassiel, at any rate.

Azrael’s mouth fell open, as if here about to speak, but his vessel’s hand moved almost independently of his will, pulling a small brass pocket watch from the breast pocket of his vessel’s ebony suit. He glanced down at the face of the watch, a small frown breaking out across his face and creasing his brow, before closing the watch and slipping it back into his pocket. “You must forgive my discourtesy, brother, but I have a busy schedule. I will do my best to meet with you again, brother.”

Cassiel nodded respectfully, and with one great flap of his wings, Azrael was gone, the force behind his movement stirring the mirror like water and sending waves of it cascading over the rim of the tub until it settled once more into glassy stillness. Cassiel, however, chose to leave through the front door, the melancholy rhythm of Carter’s music drifting out into the hall behind him.


	5. To Act In Malice

Despite his insistence that he would continue his studies, Cassiel’s conversation with Azrael, however brief, had left him feeling troubled. Perhaps Azrael was right, and they simply weren’t supposed to understand humanity. Perhaps that was what their fallen brethren had been cast out of heaven for; not reluctance but overeagerness. Cassiel shook his head, trying to clear that particular musing from his head. Thoughts like that would likely lead to his own fall, and he had no intention of joining his infamous fallen brethren in their hatred of humanity and the Host.

Cassiel had taken to the streets again, red scarf still wrapped tightly around his neck despite his immunity to the cold, and some small part of him still hoped he would come across Béatrice  Tremblay again though he knew it was unlikely. The city he had chosen to occupy was immensely vast, and Cassiel had no idea if he was even on the same street he had witnessed her in. Nonetheless, he continued to hope. She had, after all, been his most promising subject of study.

In the two months he spent wandering the streets, however, he caught neither sight nor sound of her. Instead he had been subjected to what was arguably the worst of humanity. Azrael’s advice had clung to his mind as he watched the lowest of the low play out their depraved little games, and it had disheartened him. Humanity were supposed to be his Father’s greatest creation, impossible not to love and be devoted to, yet they were so eager to hurt their own kind, so eager to throw each other under the proverbial bus for the sake of furthering their own lives. It was sick, and depraved, and sinful, and Cassiel knew he wanted no part in it, but that beacon of light, the one instance of goodness he had witnessed in the form of Béatrice Tremblay kept him from giving up.

As he walked, absently trudging through the snow, unseen by the people around him, he recalled an incident he had witnessed just a few days prior. So far during his time on Earth, he had seen little evidence of the seven deadly sins being called into play which had given him some small semblance of hope for humanity, but there had been one individual that had embodied not one, but _three_ of them; lust, envy and pride.

Cassiel couldn’t recall his name – in fact, he was fairly certain he had taken extensive measures to erase it from his mind completely – but he could recall his odour. The man, all six foot four of him, had _reeked_ of expensive cologne that had made Cassiel’s nose itch, and would likely have triggered a sneeze in him if it had been part of Cassiel’s physical repertoire. His jet black hair had been slicked back with some kind of grease, and he had wrapped himself in a three piece suit, checking his reflection in every available mirrored surface he came across. Initially Cassiel had shown no interest in him – a self-obsessed individual hardly made for an interesting subject, after all, and for now, Cassiel was only interested in those that caught his eye – but the man had crossed paths with him so many times within the space of two months that Cassiel had found it near impossible not to follow the pungent odour of his cologne.

His disinterest in the man hadn’t proven unfounded as he watched him meet up with another male for what seemed to be a simple lunch. He had watched, bored, as the two of them conversed over trivial matters before sharing a kiss, something Cassiel had seen several times by now, and was still ultimately unimpressed by. The whole ordeal was as trivial and uninteresting as he had anticipated, the overpowering odour of the man’s cologne finally beginning to diminish, when he caught one simple sentence pass from the lips of the other man, all tousled sandy hair and sun kissed skin.

“Think I should ever tell Lola about us?” he asked, the question practically nothing more than an idle musing as he sipped at his seemingly never ending cup of coffee. Humanity wasn’t half attached to its coffee, Cassiel had found.

A quick brush of his hand against the darker skinned man’s shoulder informed him Lola was his wife of five years, but not just that, she was the sister of the gentleman he was meeting. That still wasn’t enough to catch Cassiel’s interest, but it was enough to turn his borrowed stomach. The idea that the two of them would commit adultery so openly, but even worse that the uninformed party was the man’s own sister… Cassiel was certain that would be enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?” Lola’s brother smirked, winking at the darker skinned man. Cassiel would have smote him where he sat, were he not so wary of interfering.

The closer Cassiel got to them, and the more Lola’s brother’s awful cologne died down, the more Cassiel could smell the stench of sweat and pheromones on the two of them. The undeniable scent of sweat that Cassiel had only encountered a few times in his duration on Earth, but it was unmistakeable all the same. That in and of itself did not bother the angel; he bore no ill will towards those of differing sexual preferences to what he understood was considered the societal norm. If anything, he actively welcomed the variation. During his time studying various genii of animals he had witnessed homosexuality amongst mating pairs of animals, the most notable of which had been watching two male swans hatch and raise a young signet. No, it wasn’t that it was two men that bothered him, but the nature of their relationship. The fact they were unfaithful to a wife and to a sister. The fact that the brother had been so consumed by his appearance that Cassiel had witnessed him inspect his reflection in the back of the spoon he was using to stir his coffee.

The fact that, when Cassiel graced the brother with a longer, almost deliberate touch to his shoulder, he discovered that the brother, Charlie, had not only coveted his sister’s husband, but had coveted the life she had made for herself with him. Envy and lust ran through his veins as thick as his blood, and it made Cassiel feel sick. He had laid his hands on the brother one last time, maintaining the contact for a good few minutes, half hoping the overpowering sense of solitude drove him to something drastic. The world would be a far better place without a stain like him.

Yet days later, when he had been given the chance to think about his actions, Cassiel felt that same familiar guilt weighing on his gut. Charlie’s actions had been inexcusable, yes, but Cassiel had acted in malice. His mood had been near murderous, and it chilled him that he could be that way. He was a warrior of God, he knew that much, but he had never expected to need to act on those instincts and those impulses. He had never expected to _enjoy_ them.

The chill of the snow did little to settle Cassiel’s uneasy nerves, and walking through the busy streets no longer seemed to have the calming effect it once had. Even the usual roar of civilisation seemed distant and unimportant, the sounds practically echoing around him but leaving it sounding like his head was submerged underwater. He walked absently through the streets, his feet buried under the thick blanket of snow that had settled on the streets in the night, though his presence left no trace on the otherwise unblemished surface. He walked the Earth, but not as a physical being. He was more like a ghost, observable only when he wished, and never more detectable than he allowed.

Eventually his feet had dragged him back to the church he had found Carter Smith in. His reluctance to enter, had anyone been able to see him, would have been clear on his face. The fear that he would lead someone else to their death was in the forefront of his mind, ever present and ever persistent, but he swallowed his fear, hesitantly treading in over the threshold. The place was dark – and had technically been locked, but padlocks and security chains had never been an issue for Cassiel – and a haunting silence hung about the air. Cassiel was the only being present inside the church, and he certainly felt it. The place, which was always relatively hushed, felt too silent. Uncomfortably so, but Cassiel knew it would only be a matter of time until the first few signs of life stirred through the thick oak doors, as light would begin to filter in through the stained glass windows and fill the place with that warm glow he had first seen.

And when people did begin to venture inside, he vowed to simply listen.


	6. Repent

Four months had passed since Cassiel had arrived back in the church. Time passed by him like sand in an hourglass, the golden grains practically drifting in the air around him. He could feel the death and decay the living bodies around him succumbed to with each second that passed, and it chilled him, reminded him that humanity was vulnerable, and short-lived. Part of him wondered just what it would be like to live such a brief life, and not to exist as the world did. Could his kind even comprehend something like that? His kind were endless, unless they were slain by their brethren, of course, but that hadn’t happened since Lucifer had fallen from heaven.

But humans were so fleeting. He had seen reptiles with longer life spans than humanity, yet here they were, thriving and destructive. It was marvellous, if not intimidating. He knew humanity were larger in number than he and his siblings, and if one day they ever turned against the heavens… As vulnerable and fleeting at they were, Cassiel wasn’t sure he would wish to face a human army the size of the Earth, even if their weapons would be useless. He didn’t doubt their destructive nature would grant them a way to somehow injure his kind, though.

In fact, even in the church, he had witnessed signs of their destructive nature. He had been sat in there one night, the lights dimmed, the candles extinguished, nothing but a thin veil of darkness hanging over him as he sat with his own thoughts, waiting for the next day to begin, when he had heard a commotion. Despite Cassiel’s inquisitive side, it wasn’t entirely in his nature to investigate large noises, but he resolved to find out the source of the noise in the hope it might prove useful to his observation of humanity. He made his way, hesitantly, to the source of the noise, finding a large rock resting peacefully on the abstract patterned carpet. Around the rock lay slivers of broken glass, and a breeze seeped in through a large hole in the window; a stained glass depiction of his oldest brother, Michael. Cassiel had never seen Michael in person, but he understood even his siblings sometimes wished to throw rocks at their esteemed leader.

Cassiel had fixed the glass, if only out of respect for his brother who he feared might be watching and take the allowed vandalism as a sign of disrespect, and returned to his seat. Another stone was put through a different window the next night. Cassiel found no reason to fix that one, even as the snow began to drift into the church. He couldn’t understand why someone would vandalise such a holy place, but perhaps he didn’t _want_ to understand. If mankind could assault something to sacred, then was _couldn’t_ they assault? That act of vandalism, paired with all the other acts of sin, debauchery and hatred he had seen left the angel somewhat disillusioned about humanity, left his young mind weak and vulnerable to attack. And that is exactly what happened.

He was sat at his usual pew; the one nearest the back in which he could quietly observe all the churchgoers at his leisure, when he felt someone take a seat next to him, the sound of leather creaking as they moved. At first, Cassiel paid them little mind; people had sat at this pew before, but never quite so closely. It almost seemed as if whoever was seated next to him could _see_ him, which he knew was next to impossible, unless…

Cassiel braved a glance at the person next to him, glimpsing dark skin and bright purple hair, before he turned his gaze back towards the front of the church. He didn’t recognise the vessel, or the presence residing inside it, but he was certain it was one of his siblings. An old one, he assumed, given the unfamiliarity of it.  He knew better than to speak first, waiting for whoever it was beside him to address him, if they so wished.

The two of them sat in peaceful silence for a good few minutes before the other presence spoke, accent decidedly different to what he was used to hearing in Toronto. Australian, maybe, or perhaps South African. Cassiel only had limited experience of them, but he recognised the patterns of pronunciation.

"Good evening, Cassiel," she said, turning her head to face Cassiel, forest green eyes running over his vessel analytically.

Cassiel bowed his head respectfully, still not entirely sure who he was speaking with. “Forgive me, sibling,” he murmured, “But I am not familiar with this vessel.”

The unfamiliar presence let out a low chuckle. “Nor would I expect you to, Cassiel. I understand Michael doesn’t approve of our siblings fraternising with my kind. My name is Abaddon.”

An involuntary movement stirred through Cassiel, forcing his vessel’s muscles to tense, his back straightening a little in a strange mix of respect and fear. He had heard stories about Abaddon, and though he knew his sister had existed long before his time they had always felt more like ghost stories, tales to frighten young fledglings at night, much to the enjoyment of their elder siblings. He had certainly never expected to come face to face with her, least of all in a church.

“As I understand it, sister, Michael doesn’t approve of much,” Cassiel said warily, still somewhat convinced Michael would be watching him and somehow take offense.

Abaddon let out a laugh, the sound echoing against the high ceiling of the church, though the humans inside were oblivious to it. At least she had had the sense to shield herself from them, as Cassiel had. The leather of her jacket creaked once more as she readjusted her position, angling herself towards Cassiel more, as if their conversation were a casual chat between two good friends.

“Much as I would like to, I cannot fault Michael for his distaste for most everything. My kin and I did bring ‘devastation’ to many of the things he enjoyed, after all,” Abaddon admitted, humour still colouring her voice. “All the same, he never had much view for things aside from that precious duty of his. Lucifer tells tales of a time when he was different, but personally I believe there is little truth to them.”

“I am sure you didn’t come here simply to gossip about our brother, Abaddon. Say your piece and leave – I would have nothing to do with our fallen brethren,” Cassiel’s voice held a confidence that betrayed how intimidated he was. In the stories he had heard, Abaddon had been a fearsome leader, with tremendous near unbridled power, and a keen eye for battle strategy. He had never heard talk of her enjoying conversations such as this, though he supposed perhaps that was because stories like that wouldn’t be nearly so interesting.

“Am I not allowed to meet with my young siblings?” Abaddon questioned, shooting Cassiel an inquisitive look that sent a shiver down his borrowed spine. He knew all too well it wasn’t a question, but he resolved to answer it nonetheless.

“What purpose do you have speaking with those that are still loyal to our Father?” he countered, noting the look of distaste that flickered across Abaddon’s features at the word ‘Father’. “I was under the impression Lucifer and his comrades were not permitted to set foot on hallowed ground. It seems strange you would decide to approach any of our siblings inside a church.”

A smile slid onto Abaddon’s cherry red lips, the act seeming so foreign that it almost seemed to warp her vessel’s features. “We aren’t permitted to interfere with heaven’s affairs, though that order has never stopped us from doing so,” she said casually, as if it was a trivial matter, and Cassiel couldn’t help but wonder just what affairs they had meddled in. “He did, however, leave us the freedom to enter places of worship. He believed it would give us the chance to repent our sins, but ask yourself this, Cassiel; why would I repent my liberation from his dictatorship? I don’t believe He intended us to repent – He claims omniscience, after all, and surely He would know we would not regret falling – but He needed to seem sympathetic to those that did still follow Him. It makes sense, does it not?”

Cassiel narrowed his eyes at Abaddon, smile still pressed to her face. “What is your game, Abaddon?”

“I understand your concerns, Cassiel,” Abaddon said sympathetically, an almost pitying look in her eyes. “Hell, most of the people you’ll talk to are older than you could ever imagine; I don’t you’ve even met some of them, and yet here you are, stuck in their silly war games.” Abaddon shook her head dismissively.

Cassiel knew all too well she spoke of the apocalypse, but by all accounts it was supposed to have occurred many generations ago. As far as he knew, even _Michael_ had given up on the idea.

“They mean the best for you, little brother,” Abaddon continued, not giving Cassiel a chance to interrupt, though not that he would have dared to in the first place. “I was a general before I fell. Michael’s finest,” she spoke as if she were proud of the fact, and a small warning light signalled in Cassiel’s mind. To be prideful was to sin, and he knew his fallen brethren were notorious for tempting younger angels into the same sordid ways as them.

“But then He made _them_ , and He asked us to love them, and I knew that I couldn’t but I had too much to lose if I spoke out. I would lose my family, my position, my respect.” Abaddon’s voice escalated as she spoke, the ground beneath the church shaking a little as her temper grew. “I would be cast out of heaven, alone, and nothing scared me more than that, little brother. So I stood in silent compliance, begrudgingly bowed to them and played my part, but then…” she trailed off, a certain fondness in her tone as if she were recalling the affections of a loved one. “Lucifer spoke out against our Father, said “I cannot love them, they are flawed and monstrous,” and I knew. If I voiced my concerns, I wouldn’t be alone. And then Lucifer began to amass an army, and I am sure you can guess who the first to turn to his cause was.”

“Is that what you expect of me?” Cassiel asked meekly. “To turn to Lucifer’s cause?”

“On the contrary, Cassiel, I do not _expect_ you to do anything,” Abaddon said casually, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But, as I am sure Azrael has warned you, you are walking a dangerous path that _will_ change you.”

“How will it change me?” Cassiel inquired, concern running through him like ice.

“No one can be sure of that, Cassiel. Azrael and Dumah have walked the same path, and they returned from it “changed for the better,” or so they claim. Dumah especially claims it granted him a greater appreciation of humanity and their charms, but I always doubted the old fool. His only associates are the dead, of course he is going to try to find greater meaning in their fleeting, pointless little lives,” Abaddon spat venomously, casting an affronted gaze towards the sparse gathering of humans inside the church. “But it has changed others for what is truly the better; it has opened their eyes to the evils of humanity, to the flaws and their murderous nature that your Father orders you to love unconditionally. I hope it opens your eyes to the truth, little brother.”

Cassiel was silent a while as he let Abaddon’s poisonous words settle in his head, sifting through them for signs of dishonesty or manipulation. He knew everything she had said was like venom, and the longer he dwelt on it, the further into his system it would seep, but in that moment, there almost seemed to be some kind of truth that rang out in her grand speech. He certainly noted the look of glee she tried to mask at his moment of silence, knowing all too well that she was likely counting on him listening to her and taking her words to heart.

“You’re wrong, sister,” Cassiel said defiantly after a while, his voice incredibly small. “Yes, they are flawed, and yes, they can be murderous in nature, but in these past few months, I have witnessed incredible resilience in them. Everything around them almost seems designed to hurt them; automobiles, great towering buildings, weapons. They require so much to keep them alive for such little time, but despite that, they still continue to thrive.” A smile tinged Cassiel’s features, warmth filling his vessel as fondness swept over him, a reminder of just what it was he loved about mankind in the first place.

“And the fact that they slaughter each other over land and money and pointless facets of religion?” Abaddon asked in disbelief. “That means _nothing_ to you?”

“Oh it means something, sister, but we were taught to love unconditionally. No species is without its faults; even ours.”

Abaddon shook her head, purple curls falling about her face with the movement. “I had such faith in you, Cassiel. There is still time, I suppose,” she murmured, more to herself than to Cassiel before turning her attention back to the younger angel. “If you want to see what humanity is really like, little brother, you will leave this place be and walk amongst them once more. Really watch them and their intent, and I am sure you will see sense.”

“Thank you for your concern, sister, but I know what I am doing,” Cassiel insisted, and Abaddon nodded slightly, as if to cut their conversation short.

“Very well, Cassiel, I will leave you to your own devices. Just know that it isn’t just me that’s watching you.”

With that, she left just as quickly as she had arrived, the soles of her shoes squeaking lightly against the wood floor of the entryway. The tension in Cassiel’s muscles didn’t leave him until a good few hours after his ancient sibling had left, though her words still swam around his head, irritatingly persistent in their urgency to be addressed. He stayed glued to his pew, adamant that his plan to observe the churchgoers would sate his curiosity, but the longer he persisted, the more he began to wonder if perhaps Abaddon was right. Staying rooted to one place would only allow him to observe the faithful, and he had found the same core principles in each and every one of them; some were more devout, some were lax in their approach to sinning, but at their core, they were all the same. Even Cassiel had to admit that didn’t make for a very diverse study.

But he knew taking to the streets once more would only result in further disappointment, and given Abaddon’s appearance, it only further highlighted what was at stake. How could he return to heaven if he could no longer love humanity? He would be cast out of paradise to join his fellow fallen siblings, and that thought terrified him more than the idea of disappointing Michael or any other of his superiors. For the sake of his desire to understand them, however, he knew he would have to leave the safety of the church, and will some reluctance, he did just that.


	7. Home

As Cassiel had predicted, the streets of Toronto had been as uneventful and disheartening as before. People were polite, of course, but they weren’t particularly righteous, nor were they swathed in sin. All in all, the place seemed unnaturally neutral, though he understood that seemed to be the case for most of the world. With the rise of the modern world, faith in God had dwindled, and people were challenged with defining their own morals. Morality, it seemed, was now a questionable and debatable subject, and it unsettled Cassiel. Morality to him had always been the bedrock of his existence. It was the foundation of all his Father’s teachings, and His Word was important above all else. The idea that one could choose not to follow that… He was beginning to understand why the idea of falling was so tempting to his more rebellious siblings.

After all, was it not unfair that humanity should be allowed the right to choose and not be punished for it, when he and his siblings had no choice but to follow? From day one, they were taught that family and Father were the most important things they had, the most sacred of possessions and the most highly regarded of authorities, yet to fall was to sacrifice all of that? It must have taken an incredible amount of bravery for Lucifer to stand up against it all… Cassiel tried to silence his mind after that. To have sympathy for the devil was to be a traitor to his kind, and to humanity, and he had no intentions of committing such treachery.

He drifted from place to place, observing those he passed, but none of them seemed to hold his interest. There had been a young boy he had watched for a while as he tried to buy flowers for his mother, but he had called off his search eventually, and Cassiel had lost interest. He had no sympathy for those who gave in so easily. The young angel had stopped in his tracks at the sight of an all too familiar head of fiery hair, still lacking a hat in the cold weather, and he dared to hope that he had _finally_ found Béatrice again.

As he got closer to her, Cassiel couldn’t mistake her frame for anyone else. She walked with an air of confidence, as if nothing in the world could trouble her, and it showed in her mannerisms. Cassiel could see her smiling at each face she passed, and it sent a warmth through him that he only seemed to feel in her presence. It reminded him of home – and oh, how he longed for the company of his siblings right then – but it was different, somehow. More human, he supposed, though he couldn’t be sure without further research.

 She was wearing different clothes to what he had seen her in before, and he could only assume she had the day off work, but she still walked with the same sense of purpose, as if she had somewhere she needed to be, and she needed to get there on time. Yet, despite that sense of purpose, there was a certain casualness about her walk. She had somewhere to be, had a schedule to stick to, but she could afford distractions and hesitations, as evidenced by the same homeless man she had stopped by before, giving him a handful of change this time instead of buying him a coffee.

Cassiel followed her through the city, watching as she took all the side streets and back alleys, change spilling from her pockets with each homeless person she came across til Cassiel was sure she must have been out of money, but still more coins poured from her hands til she reached what he could only assume was her intended destination. The place seemed extraordinarily run down for something so active, and the stench of death hung heavy in the air. Cassiel half expected to lay eyes on the bronze placard in front of the building and read the word “funeral home”, but was instead met with the sight of a seniors’ centre.

He could feel his influence spreading out around him as he and Béatrice entered the place, as it seemed to do naturally around those that were already alone. The scent of death was still overpowering, but he could catch the fragrance of flowers and medication here and there, and a stale scent of gravy drifted about the place, though it seemed a few days old. Béatrice smiled at the people she passed, greeting many of the elderly residents, before disappearing from Cassiel’s sight momentarily, the angel too easily distracted by the sights and sounds around him. When he found her again, her red hair had been pulled up into a loose ponytail, and she had a small tag with her name on clipped to her shirt. She was sat with an elderly man whose attention was somewhat divided between her and his newspaper, though Béatrice didn’t seem to mind.

As he had done countless times before, a brief touch of the man’s shoulder revealed his name was Thomas Winters, born in nineteen twenty four, and Cassiel could feel the residual energy left behind when someone had been used as an angelic vessel, though he couldn’t quite recall who had inhabited this particular man.

"What’s the word, Tom?" Béatrice asked him with a smile, and Thomas lowered his newspaper a little, cloudy eyes seeking out Béatrice before he spoke.

"Another monument’s been vandalised," he said gruffly, his voice shaky and quiet with age, accent pointedly English instead of Canadian. "I tell you, Beatrice, it makes you want to spit," he said animatedly, earning a warning glare from a nearby nurse. If Béatrice was bothered by the mispronunciation of her name, she didn’t let it show.

"There’s not much they can do about it, Tom, you know that. But at least it gets people thinking about it," Béatrice offered with a smile, which Thomas seemed unable to resist.

"I wish there’d been girls as nice as you back in my day," he said with a wink, earning a laugh from the redhead.

"I wouldn’t let your wife hear that if I were you, Tom, but I appreciate the compliment all the same. How is Sylvia?"

Thomas jerked his shoulders in what seemed to be a shrug, something Cassiel was intrigued by. “She’s herself, what more is there to say? Doesn’t remember much, but I still go to see her.”

Béatrice flashed him a sympathetic smile, reaching out to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. “When are you going to see her next?” Béatrice asked, to which Thomas replied with a guessed ‘next week, maybe’ and the redhead gave him a more gleeful smile. “You might want to arrange a visit sooner than that. I managed to find those flowers you told me about.”

Had Cassiel been able to, he would have asked about the flowers. It was clear they held some sort of sentimental value to the balding man, but Cassiel supposed he would never know without interfering. He was wary of invading Béatrice’s mind, after all, and Thomas’ seemed fragile enough without his interference, the sounds of whistling artillery and the steady rhythm of gunfire echoing through his head when Cassiel had sought to determine his name.

Thomas looked at Béatrice almost in disbelief, the beginnings of tears tugging at the corners of his eyes as he pulled Béatrice into a hug, tears flowing freely as she returned his embrace. If Cassiel was honest, he wanted to make his presence known, if only in the hopes that either of the humans before him could answer at least one of the hundreds of questions whizzing around his head at light speed. Why were the aforementioned flowers so special? What did Béatrice stand to gain by obtaining them for Thomas? Was she even doing it for personal gain?

Cassiel watched Béatrice for the rest of the day as she drifted from person to person in the home, putting smiles on all their faces and seeming to brighten their days. Béatrice, it seemed, was a beacon of light in an otherwise darkened world. Whenever Cassiel was beginning to lose his faith in humanity, she would appear and singlehandedly restore his faith once more. Even he had to admit that was worrying.

Perhaps he was beginning to understand how his Father had felt in the time of Noah, however. Was Béatrice to be the next saviour in a string of biblical catastrophes? Cassiel hoped not, for fear it might dampen that brilliant spirit of hers.

Had Noah caught His attention as much as Béatrice had caught his? Cassiel couldn’t help but wonder, lost in his own thoughts as he absently watched Béatrice make her way around the centre, just talking and smiling and helping, carrying out such selfless acts that left Cassiel positively perplexed as to why she was doing it. He had never seen an example of such generosity, unless there was some personal gain to be had, but he couldn’t sense anything of the sort in Béatrice’s case. Perhaps she had committed some great sin an age ago that she felt she had to atone for, but she didn’t seem the sort. She wasn’t religious, Cassiel could tell that much, but the same core principles he shared with his siblings seemed to be present in the young woman. _That_ was why she reminded him so much of home.


	8. James

After watching her so intently in the seniors’ centre, Cassiel resolved to study Béatrice in a more in depth manner. The memory of what had happened last time he had followed one of his subjects home flashed to the front of his mind, but he did his best to force it back down. Aside from studying Béatrice’s intentions, he would keep an eye on her behaviour and back off if she began to mirror anything he had seen in Carter Smith.

Béatrice’s home was much different to Carter’s. Where Carter’s home had been cramped and tinged with mould, Béatrice’s was light and airy. It was small, there was no mistaking that, but the pastel colours splashed on the walls made the room feel more open. A small sofa sat in the middle of the room, a number of pillows that could almost constitute a nest were scattered along the pale purple fabric of it, while a collection of books and magazines sat atop a white coffee table perched a short distance away from the sofa. The light reddish pink of the curtains half drawn across the windows left a warm glow in the room, despite the dying sun, and Cassiel could make out a painting of a large brown blossom tree on the far wall, stretching between the two windows and creeping upwards onto the ceiling, a few of the blossoms depicted as falling from their branches.

It felt homely, as if Béatrice had put time and effort into making the place hers, instead of just somewhere she inhabited. Yes, it was definitely a stark contrast to Carter’s home, which had hardly felt like a home at all. The place was an organised mess, and Cassiel watched as Béatrice tossed her bag onto the sofa, keys inside jingling as it landed, before making her way through to the kitchen, which was light and airy as the rest of the place seemed to be. The place echoed her personality perfectly – or at least, it echoed what Cassiel had _seen_ of her personality perfectly, and if he was honest he didn’t want to see any negative parts of it – and gave off that same distinct homely feel that the human did herself.

The fragrant smell of home cooked meals and French cuisine lingered in the kitchen, various colourfully painted pots of herbs dotted around the kitchen adding to the mix of scents, circling and entwining around each other to form something much grander and enticingly tempting. Cassiel was familiar with the old Grecian myth regarding Persephone and the fabled pomegranate seeds, and somehow he didn’t doubt that, had he been in Persephone’s place and the pomegranate seeds had been the smell of Béatrice’s cooking, even _he_ would have given in.

He perched on one of the kitchen counters, watching as the young woman moved about the kitchen animatedly, moving from chipping board to saucepan to oven with fervent passion and enthusiasm, and he couldn’t help but note that she seemed to be cooking more than was necessary for one person. Perhaps she was having guests over, he mused, though he wasn’t sure how he felt about having to introduce other specimens to his study. He knew he would have to eventually, but for now he was content simply to watch Béatrice.

Cassiel felt his vessel’s eyes slide shut, happy to simply listen to the sounds of Béatrice cooking paired with her voice singing along to some unheard song in a language he didn’t understand, the scent of garlic drifting through Béatrice’s cosy apartment. He opened his eyes again when he heard her pulling some other utensil out of a cabinet, cocking his head to one side a little at the sight of a large stock pot resting on top of the counter next to the stove. Béatrice took a saucepan from the stove, turning the flame off, before pouring the contents into the stock pot and putting the lid on it, just in time for an alarm on the oven to go off. Lingering just under the smell of garlic was that of fresh baked bread, which soon made an appearance as she took a tray of baguettes from the oven. She propped them up in a small basket, barely making contact long enough to move them but still seeming to do so with ease, before hooking the basket’s handle against the crook of her elbow and picking the pot up with both hands, steam rising from both of them.

She headed out of her apartment once more, various saucepans still simmering away on the stove, and walked down to the floor below with a certain spring in her step, still humming along to a tune Cassiel didn’t hear and didn’t know. She pulled a key from her pocket with some difficulty, considering the volume of things she was carrying, and let herself into another apartment, the walls decorated a less homely colour. He heard someone call out Béatrice’s name, the flame haired woman calling back a greeting in her usual cheerful voice as she made her way into the kitchen, setting down her produce before moving into the living room to greet whoever it was that had called out to her. In the middle of a squashed little armchair sat a man not much older than Béatrice who, aside from lacking an arm, seemed to be going about his day as any other human would.

Béatrice perched on the arm of the chair, which earned her a gentle scolding from the man, but the smile on his face suggested he didn’t mean it. Whether or not he did, he seemed placated by the kiss Béatrice pressed to the top of his shaven head. The two of them spoke for a while before Béatrice hopped off the chair, heading back into the kitchenette to serve up the soup she had made, slicing up one of the baguettes and bringing in all in for her and her new companion. She barely batted an eyelid as the man struggled not to spill his soup, simply adjusting the tray in his lap as if it were nothing without even breaking their conversation. Cassiel could see the embarrassment on the man’s face fade at Béatrice’s casual approach, and it only served to intrigue the angel more.

It was obvious as to how this man was at a disadvantage in life, but even so he seemed perfectly capable of looking after himself. Why did Béatrice feel the need to help him? Cassiel found himself wondering once more if she was acting with the intention of personal gain, but really, what did she have to gain in this situation? There was always the chance she found him sexually attractive, but the way the two responded to each other hinted at something more platonic than romantic. It perplexed the angel, to say the least.

As he watched the two of them eat, it only furthered his resolve to watch Béatrice until he found some kind of motivation for her acts. In that moment, he had never more wished to interfere, to appear in physical form and meddle the way his siblings were so accustomed to, but old habits die hard, he supposed. Despite his interest in Béatrice, and his urge to understand her, he still couldn’t bring himself to throw away millennia of personal preference. He wasn’t an interferer, he was an observer – that was simply the way it was meant to be.

The two of them finished their meal and James, as Cassiel had established the man was called, said his farewells with a kiss on the cheek and a well placed thank you before Béatrice left, returning to her own cosy apartment, taking the rest of the saucepans off the stove and emptying their contents into Tupperware boxes before depositing them in the freezer. She settled down on the pale purple sofa, nestling in amongst the cushions as she relaxed, a grainy black and white film playing on the television in front of the cluttered coffee table.

The next few days followed suit in much the same manner. Béatrice would spend her days helping where she could, before coming home to have dinner with James in the apartment downstairs before returning to her own, spending the rest of the evening in her own company. Had Cassiel not preferred his own company, he might have been concerned that she had no real friends other than those she helped, but unfortunately for the both of them Cassiel _did_ prefer his own company and thought nothing of Béatrice’s apparent solitude. Had he noticed, he might have wondered if that was why he was drawn to her so frequently.

He watched her for a week, searching intently for some sort of motive, some sign that she had something to gain from it, but as far as he could tell, she simply wanted to be nice. She reminded him a lot of his brother Raphael. The Bible painted him as a healer, but honestly, it didn’t do him justice. He was first and foremost a healer – he tended to the injuries of the heavenly host, and was often the source of most medical miracles on Earth – but deep down, Raphael simply wanted to help people. And not just people, anything that lived and breathed under their Father’s light. If heaven didn’t need him, he could often be found helping injured animals and humans alike. Whoever asked for his help would likely receive it, provided he was able to reach them in time, but there were always those he couldn’t help. Those he couldn’t save and the heavens would weep on those days, the sorrow of an archangel raining down upon the earth in great storms and raging seas. Cassiel couldn’t help but wonder how Béatrice would react if there was someone she couldn’t help.

By the end of the week, however, Cassiel had finally made up his mind about Béatrice – her actions were carried out simply because, much like Raphael, she wished to help everyone that she could. Whether that help was in the form of a few spare coins, a friendly face or a home cooked meal, she did her bit just to bring a smile to people’s faces. And for the first time since he came to Earth all those months ago, Cassiel felt hopeful once more.


	9. The Beauty of Heaven

One thing Cassiel noted about Béatrice during his time with her was that she seemed immune to his influence. Ever since he was a fledgling, his siblings and those around him had shied away from him, eager to rid themselves of the sense of loneliness his influence seemed to exude, but if Béatrice felt it, she didn’t let it show. He had been watching her for almost two weeks now, and the young woman was as bubbly and bright as ever, a smile almost constantly pressed to her face as she went about her business.

He had been watching her get ready for work when he felt the familiar presence of one of his siblings. To his relief, their grace still shone as vibrantly as ever, signifying that one of his faithful brothers or sisters had come to speak with him, no doubt to try and dissuade him from his intentions, or to deliver a scolding from Michael for talking to Abaddon. He left Béatrice to her own devices, leaving her apartment in search of the sibling he could sense.

He found her in the form of a shapely woman waiting in the foyer of the building with a welcoming smile pressed to her face. Her vessel’s hair was pulled into a braid and rested across her left shoulder, bare skin of it exposed but for a thin strap of white material. She held out a hand to him, sun kissed skin paler than his own vessel’s, and lead him from the building, her grace warming against his own. Cassiel had never been one to participate in it, but he understood the sharing of grace - their very essence - was a great honour, most often only practiced amongst companions and mated pairs. And while their contact wasn’t exactly sharing grace, Cassiel could feel his sister’s brush against his comfortingly, and it filled him with a happiness quite unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

It was as her grace brushed against his that Cassiel recognised just which of his siblings had come to visit him, and even he had to admit it was a rare treat for someone as low ranking as him. Her name was Jophiel, the beauty of God, and she led the choir of cherubim, arguably the sweetest sounding chorus in all of the host. He could feel her beauty and her radiance in her grace, and it made him feel unworthy. Unworthy of being in her presence. Unworthy of being in such close proximity to her grace.

Beaded and woven bracelets jingled and clacked together as they walked, the pieces of jewellery seeming to swamp her vessel’s slender wrists but Jophiel paid them no heed, content to lead Cassiel through the summer heat, sun shining down on the streets around them. Jophiel came to a halt when they reached a large expanse of greenery - Cassiel was certain it was a park, but he wasn’t familiar enough with Toronto’s geography to be certain - her hand sliding from his as she turned to face him, the breeze picking up around them and ruffling the skirt of her vessel’s dress.

"It’s been a while, Cassiel," Jophiel greeted fondly, the same smile as before on her lips as a warmth radiated from her not unlike the warmth seeping from the sun.

"Three millennia, by my count," Cassiel agreed with a nod, trying to come up with a way to politely ask Jophiel to forgo the small talk and simply get on with whatever she had been sent here for.

"I remember when you were but a fledgling, tucked under Leliel’s arm. She would be proud of how far you’ve come, brother." She paused, taking a moment to gather her thoughts, the ambience of the park life hanging in the air around them like smoke. "Cassiel, do you remember the stories she used to tell you?"

Cassiel nodded once more, age old tales filtering through his head at the memory alone. He remembered the story of how their Father had created the world and all that lived in it, how Michael and the other archangels had helped where they could and their handiwork could still be admired on the Earth. Even Lucifer’s, who by all rights should have been removed from the planet but their Father simply couldn’t bring Himself to eradicate, leaving the memories of His favourite son the flourish and prosper instead. Stories of the first humans - Adam and his wife Lilith, followed by Eve and all their sons and daughters - and the paradise they had lived in before Lucifer’s corruption.

 And, perhaps most importantly, the precautionary tales of the siblings that fell, the thought of which still chilled him to the core. Most of his siblings had shrugged them off as nothing but ghost stories and urban legends – no one would _really_ be so stupid as to follow Lucifer in his fall from grace – but Cassiel had always believed they held some truth. Perhaps some of the details had been fabricated here and there, and perhaps some of the names had been changed either out of respect or forgetfulness, but they were true, he was sure of it. Abaddon’s existence was proof enough of that; how often did one get to meet the king of locusts, after all?

"Did she ever tell you the story of Ramiel?" Jophiel asked, and Cassiel shook his head in response. An almost solemn look washed over Jophiel’s otherwise cheery face, the expression casting a dark shadow across her face that disappeared almost as swiftly as it had arrived. "Ramiel was a good friend of mine, and a loving brother. Like all of our kind, he was an exceptional example of light in the darkness, and he was one of many of our brothers and sisters charged with personally watching over humanity."

Cassiel watched as Jophiel began to pace slightly, bare feet padding along the crisp grass. She seemed troubled somehow, and Cassiel could only assume her tale wouldn’t have a happy ending.

"Ramiel loved mankind with all he had - all that concerned him, aside from our Father’s Word, of course, was their protection and their happiness - but in hindsight, perhaps that should have been a warning sign," Jophiel mused, looking up at Cassiel briefly from where her gaze rested on the ground. "Ramiel and his comrades began to walk amongst humanity, spreading the Word of God, amongst other things, and mankind began to love them in return. That love came at a cost, however, and soon Ramiel and his fellows began to covet the sons and daughters of man."

Cassiel nodded in understanding. He had heard legend of angels becoming utterly and completely devoted to one human specimen, of loving them so deeply they were willing to leave their family and their home behind. And he had heard of the monstrous hybrids that resulted from these unions; great towering men and women that were stronger than any man, with the power of heaven behind them, pulsing through their blood as if they had any right to it. Nephilim, he believed they were called, but their Father had outlawed them an age ago. They hadn’t really existed, had they?

"Ramiel fell from grace the day he chose to take a human woman as his bride - something our kind were never intended to have - and even further so when he chose to consummate that union," Jophiel continued, her voice tinged with disgust and disappointment.

“I do not wish to seem impertinent, sister,” Cassiel started meekly. As passive as Jophiel was she was still older than he could comprehend, and he didn’t doubt she was more than capable of injuring him. “But is there a meaning behind this? I cannot imagine you would have left the choir untended without good reason.”

“You know me too well, Cassiel,” Jophiel said cheerfully, before her smile slipped from her features again. “I understand you have taken a certain interest in a woman by the name of Béatrice.”

“An interest that is purely scientific,” Cassiel insisted, feeling every bit the naughty school boy caught in the act doing something naughty.

“Cassiel, we are not beings of science. Your interest in her is your own, and it worries me, brother. I have watched an entire garrison of our siblings fall from grace over human paramours, and I would not allow the same to befall you.”

Cassiel’s mouth flew open to speak, but he stopped himself, knowing better than to second guess someone as old as Jophiel. All the same, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Jophiel, of all people, was being more than a little hypocritical by giving him this speech. He listened a moment longer as Jophiel warned him once more about the dangers of becoming too closely associated with humans, and what having too much interest in them could do before he finally rushed out his retort, regretting it almost as soon as he had.

“Like you were interested in Enoch?”

Jophiel froze mid sentence, her usual cheery disposition melding into something darker as she narrowed her eyes at the younger archangel, and though it wasn’t her field to govern, Cassiel could have sworn the skies grew darker as her mood grew fouler. The air grew heavy around the two of them, as if a thick fog were setting in, and it made the hairs on the back of Cassiel’s borrowed neck stick up in discomfort.

“Enoch was different, and you would do well not to meddle in affairs you have no part in. Stop following Béatrice, Cassiel, or we will not be held accountable for our actions.”

And with that, Jophiel was gone, her vessel disappearing in the blink of an eye and leaving Cassiel alone in the park, the air still too thick and too heavy around him and the unsettling feeling of being watched creeping down his spine.


	10. Real Sixties People

While Jophiel’s visit had been unexpected, though not entirely unwelcome despite the lecture she had given Cassiel, the visit he received after was even more unexpected. There before him stood Ramiel himself, tall and proud as ever, as if he could tell they had been talking about him.

His vessel towered over Cassiel’s, but for once the younger angel was not afraid. He remembered Ramiel,  if only a little, from his youth in heaven. He had fallen when Cassiel was still a fledgling, but he could just faintly make out a few foggy memories involving his brother; most of them just watching him training other young angels how to be warriors and vowing to be as strong a warrior himself. Now that Cassiel was older and wiser, he felt almost embarrassed by his naivety.

Cassiel didn’t need to ask his brother what he had come for. For once the angel had faith that it _wouldn’t_ be about trying to turn him to Lucifer’s cause, or trying to deter him from his current intentions. No, this was personal. He was there to right whatever wrong he felt had been committed against him.

"How long’s it been, Cassie?" he asked with a friendly grin, seemingly amused by Cassiel’s obvious distaste for his relaxed language. "Our falls ain’t something to be taken lightly, baby bro."

"Perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you disobeyed our Father," Cassiel retorted calmly, much to the amusement of Ramiel.

He shook his head, his long chestnut locks swaying with the movement of his head. Cassiel caught the faintest hint of patchouli coming from his vessel’s clothes, which looked like they hadn’t been changed since the 1970s, all bright colours and vivid patterns.

"Cassie, Cassie, Cassie, you poor, naive little idiot," Ramiel said softly. "They’ve got you under their thumb well and truly, huh? None of us deserved what we got." Ramiel paused, considering something for a moment. "Okay, maybe Luci deserved it, but the rest of us? Not so much."

"What do you mean?" Cassiel inquired, confusion knitting his brows together in a frown.

"Most of us fell for trying to teach the new baby things. Things the spirit in the sky didn’t think they should know. And some of us fell ‘cause we went head over heels for a pretty little lady from Jerusalem."

"You fell for love?" Cassiel scoffed. "Brother, what you fell for was lust."

A look of hurt washed over Ramiel’s face, as if the suggestion physically pained him, and Cassiel almost felt guilty for it. Ramiel tried to recollect himself, a hand reaching up to scratch at his scraggly beard absently.

"Lust and love ain’t so different, baby bro, but I know what one my weakness was." He paused, scratching at his beard again as he mulled something over. Ramiel seemed to most relaxed of all Cassiel’s siblings, and he had to admit it was a welcome change. "See, I knew I loved my little lady but I knew the big man wouldn’t like it, so I loved her from a distance. And then one of my brothers, and it’s been so long I really can’t remember who, he told us all he was going for a walk. And walk he did, from one end of Jerusalem to the other."

Ramiel’s mood seemed to mellow even further then, as he clapped an arm around Cassiel’s shoulders, gently steering Cassiel towards a sofa that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, sticks of incense all burning well around it. The mingling of scents stung Cassiel’s nose and made the inside of it itch, but he would humour his brother this once.

"And y’know, it seemed like a pretty sweet idea, so the next time we tagged along, and before you know it we’re mingling and whatnot. We’re wining and dining the locals, and they love it, and who were we to spoil their fun, Cassie?" Ramiel sank into the cushions of the sofa, a look of fondness washing over him. "I tried to keep my distance from my little lady, but I couldn’t resist her charms, y’know, and next thing ya know, I’ve told her I’ll marry her. You shoulda seen the looks on all the other girls’ faces, baby bro; they were all green with envy."

"So not only did you sin, you lead a group of innocents into sinful nature, too," Cassiel exclaimed in disgust, but Ramiel shook his head again.

"They weren’t envious for long, Cassie, they found some cats of their own to marry. But when the spirit in the sky found out about me and my little lady… Hooey, he was not happy!" Ramiel said with such enthusiasm you could almost be forgiven for thinking disobeying his Father was a good thing. "So He gave me a choice, did the spirit in the sky; renounce your human wife and remain in the ‘grace of God’, or be cast out of the pearly gates to be with her."

"And you chose her," Cassiel said, more to himself than to Ramiel. "But I still maintain, brother, that your weakness was lust and not love. All we have ever been taught to do is love - surely loving your ‘little lady’ from afar would not have been difficult?"

"You’ll understand it soon enough, baby brother. I see you’ve got a lil’ lady of your own, and I gotta say, Cassie; you’ve got good taste for someone so new at this," Ramiel praised with that same goofy grin as before, the smoke from the incense pooling about his face in great clouds before he blew them away. "I heard ya telling Joey that you’re studying her. Real smooth, Cassie, I wish I’d thought o’ that one."

“It’s the truth,” Cassiel said defiantly, arms folding across his chest as if to further cement his point, but Ramiel just laughed again, clapping a hand against Cassiel’s back as if he had just told the world’s best joke.

“What’s her name?” Ramiel asked, and Cassiel reluctantly indulged him. “See, baby bro, that’s the first sign. Once you know their names, it’s _all_ downhill from there. Next you’ll be watching her all the time, won’t be able to get her off your mind, and then _boom_ – you’re engaged and the spirit in the sky’s hollering at ya.”

Cassiel shrugged his shoulder, dislodging Ramiel’s hand, though the elder angel didn’t seem to notice. He leant forward, inhaling the smoke from one of the incense sticks, the smoke seeping into his nose like wispy tendrils, and Cassiel wanted to ask where this obsession with it came from, but that seemed all too impertinent for his liking, even if Ramiel had fallen.

“Relaxes the mind,” Ramiel explained in response to a silent question, leaning back onto the sofa again and turning to look at Cassiel with a smile. “I miss the sixties, y’know. Those were some real good times. My Yerushah would’ve hated it, but they were real good times.”

“Yerushah was your wife?” Cassiel asked hesitantly, and Ramiel nodded in response, his movement slow and drawn out. “What happened to her?”

“She got old,” he said solemnly, and Cassiel was all but ready to call Ramiel out again on his supposed ‘love’ for the woman if old age was enough to turn him from her, but the fallen angel spoke again before Cassiel had a chance to interject. “Humans, they do that, and it never ends well for ‘em. She’s buried out in Jerusalem. Haven’t been to see her in a while.”

For perhaps the first time since the start of their conversation, Cassiel felt sorry for Ramiel. After all, he must have known from the start that this Yerushah would wither and die in front of his eyes, but he loved her enough to ignore that, enough to give up his family and his home to spend such a brief amount of time with her. If his attitude towards Lucifer was anything to go by, Cassiel could only guess he hadn’t fallen in with the rest of his fallen brethren, either, and the younger angel found himself wondering just how lonely Ramiel’s existence was.

Shunned by heaven, and shunning the rest of his kind. What kind of life was that? And as far as Cassiel could tell, there would be no end to it. Angels were infinite. His existence would only cease to be if someone killed him, yet Ramiel seemed different. He still seemed loyal to their Father, if only a little, and were they in each other’s places, Cassiel wasn’t sure he would be able to anger his loyal siblings greatly enough to bring their vengeance and their justice down upon him.

“Are you lonely?” Cassiel murmured, casting a sympathetic gaze upon his sibling, who still seemed blissfully unaware of anything that wasn’t the space around them or the words they were exchanging. Cassiel couldn’t help but wonder if he was under the influence of some kind of narcotic – it would explain his speech patterns, after all – but he thought with such clarity and such finesse that Cassiel highly doubted he was.

“A little,” Ramiel admitted, his hand moving to toy with the smoke drifting from the incense, watching as it curled around his fingers on its ascent into the sky, “But that’s what friends are for, right? I met these folks, real sixties people, and they sure know how to swing it.”

That grin was back again – and though Cassiel wasn’t entirely just what it was they were swinging, he would take his brother’s word for it that it was something good – and Cassiel couldn’t help but smile at him in return. His mental assertion that Ramiel wasn’t under the influence of some sort of drug was starting to wane a little, but if it made Ramiel happy, then he would turn a blind eye just this once.

Ramiel dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and sliding them onto his still grinning face, moving to get up from the sofa he had produced, but he stopped, turning to Cassiel again. The grin was gone. There was no sign of the dopy angel he had just been speaking to, his features were pulled into a deadly serious expression, and Cassiel was almost glad he couldn’t see Ramiel’s eyes for fear of how his brother might be looking at him.

“I don’t know if you love Béatrice or not, baby bro, but you keep hold o’ her no matter what, ‘kay? She’s a pretty little thang, and she’s got a good heart. That ain’t easy to come by these days. And Cassie? I said I fell for love, and I ain’t lying ‘bout that, but you gotta give lust a try ‘fore you head back upstairs.”

Ramiel let out a laugh then, the serious expression wiped from his face in a matter of seconds, replaced with a joyous smile and playful intent. The two of them were disturbed by the sound of a car honking, the horn being blown repeatedly, and Cassiel looked up to see a camper van full of people dressed similarly to Ramiel’s vessel sat inside. Ramiel was on his feet in mere seconds, heading for the van without a second thought, but suddenly he seemed to remember he had been speaking to someone.

He turned to face Cassiel again, flashing him another smile. “Don’t let the spirit in the sky get you down, baby bro. No matter what we do, he ain’t never happy, so just live a little. And if ya ever get bored of being their little sheep? Come find us in Deseronto.”

And with that, Ramiel was gone, bundled into the back of the already packed camper van and rumbling off to wherever it was he had mentioned. Cassiel had no intentions of ever joining Ramiel and his band of ‘real sixties people’, but perhaps part of him wanted to stop in on the angel just once, just to see how he was.


	11. Penkala

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, huge depression/suicide trigger for this chapter.

Despite Cassiel’s insistence that his interest in Béatrice was entirely platonic and purely scientific, what Ramiel had said still weighed on his mind like an anchor. What if focusing solely on one person rendered loving them romantically inevitable? What if he had already taken too much of an interest in her and was well on his way down the path to falling?

He didn’t want to fall. He was good. He was loyal. He was faithful. He wouldn’t sin, and he wouldn’t disappoint his Father. Not like that. Not like Ramiel, who despite his own insistence still seemed lonely to Cassiel, not to mention inexcusably sinful. Cassiel would not become the next Ramiel.

So, to try and distance himself from his most promising study, he took to the streets briefly. He needed someone that would hold his interest, but he needed to find them fast and he couldn’t afford to be picky. He scoured the streets from the skies above them, eventually honing in on a high school student named Dylan Penkala. He didn’t seem anywhere _near_ as interesting as Béatrice, but he seemed to exude that same brightness.

Dylan Penkala was the pride of his grade, and quite possibly the pride of his school. He was athletic, he was smart, he was well liked and, most importantly to Cassiel, he was virtuous. He helped others, he stood up for those that weren’t able to stand up for themselves, and despite not being religious, and he still said grace before he ate. He should have been the perfect subject, but he wasn’t. Cassiel couldn’t place why, but there was just something different about Dylan Penkala.

Cassiel observed Dylan’s daily life for a while, from a safe distance so as not to interfere too directly yet; he came to school, he studied hard, he socialised and he played his sports. Some days he would go straight home, other days he would go to a friend’s house. Dylan Penkala was perfectly average, perfectly happy, and perfectly boring. Cassiel had been on the verge of giving up when he noticed something all too familiar.

It was miniscule at first, barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things, but Dylan Penkala’s mood would suffer throughout the day, fluctuating bouts of loneliness attacking him when he least expected it, and while Cassiel knew he should back off and leave the boy be, he couldn’t help but jump at the chance to really study the effect his influence had on humans.

He knew it would seep into Dylan’s system like a slow acting poison, but his curiosity had finally been enticed and he refused to let an opportunity like this go. He did, however, swear to back off before his influence infiltrated him too deeply. Cassiel didn’t want to kill him, after all, just observe and learn. So, with a sense of quiet curiosity, he allowed himself to watch the blonde more closely, allowing his influence to spread that little bit faster.

As Dylan’s moods continued to fluctuate, Cassiel noticed the first thing to change was his academic prowess. Before his interference, as witnessed by various memories Cassiel had gained access to for the sake of his observation, Dylan had been a straight A student; the type that put hard work and effort into his work and reaped the benefits of that dedication with pride. Within a week of Cassiel’s meddling, however, he had already slipped down to a B in biology. He spent less time socialising – he would still sit with his friends at lunch, but would often sit in silence instead, barely aware of what was going on around him – and his appetite seemed to fluctuate as frequently as his moods.

One thing Cassiel noted, however, was that he never voiced these fluctuations in mood or appetite, almost like he was ashamed to be experiencing it. As if it was something that made him weak, something shameful that should be hidden away where it couldn’t bother anyone else. Had Carter Smith felt the same way? Had he hidden his depression away until he could take it no more? Did that same fate lie in store for the young man whose life he was ruining?

The rapid rate with which Dylan’s mental and physical state was deteriorating alarmed Cassiel somewhat. As he understood it - and really he didn’t understand it much - depression was supposed to be something that built up over time. It was supposed to be something that simmered away quietly until it all boiled over, or the person in question received the help they were in need of. But Dylan? It was consuming him like a vast, endless parasite, and for a while even Cassiel didn’t think there would be an end in sight.

He watched as Dylan shrunk in on himself, as physically as he did emotionally, until he barely resembled the peppy youth Cassiel had first encountered. His grades were abysmal, the sports he had once played with such passion and enthusiasm had been forgotten - he had been kicked off most of the teams he was on for repeated absence and lack of effort - and those charitable acts of his had dried up like a defunct oil well. Put simply, Cassiel had well and truly broken him, but the angel wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

Dylan had come home from school one day - and Cassiel had known from the beginning that it was going to be one of his worse days by the way he hadn’t been able to drag himself out of bed that morning - and the house was empty. His parents were working, and the sister he rarely saw anymore was at cheer practice. Like usual, he sat in his room in silence, staring at homework he knew he wouldn’t do - or perhaps _couldn’t_ do. Half an hour passed before he gave up, stuffing his books back into his backpack and slinking into his bed, pulling the covers around him.

At first Cassiel thought he had fallen asleep. He did that a lot these days, and his parents had even taken him to see some kind of doctor that specialised in sleep patterns who had simply diagnosed it as stress and fatigue. Dylan hadn’t argued otherwise, and his parents began to excuse his oversleeping just a tiny bit, hoping that if he got enough sleep he might start to feel better.

But then Cassiel had heard it - the sobbing. It was faint and almost silent, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear, but it was definitely there. The covers were pulled over his head, so Cassiel couldn’t see him properly, but it didn’t take much imagination to guess his body language, especially from the faint outline of his body beneath the covers, curled in on himself in the foetal position.

Dylan emerged from his makeshift nest after a while, the tears finally stopping, if only for a moment, and dragged his laptop onto the bed with him. Cassiel wasn’t sure what he needed it for; he hadn’t done his homework in weeks, and the majority of his friends wanted nothing to do with him anymore simply because he “never put the effort in” to make time for them. Cassiel could hear him typing - something he hadn’t done in weeks, which certainly surprised the angel - but each time he tried to see what Dylan was doing, the boy would move or block Cassiel’s view, as if he knew he was being watched.

Finally, once he had finished typing whatever it was that was so important, he propped his laptop up on his desk, the glaring white of the screen illuminating the room with an eerie glow. He sat back in bed, phone resting in his palms absently. He seemed unsure of what he was doing, as if he were in a trance and his actions weren’t his own. Cassiel supposed that, when it came down to it, they weren’t.

Dylan snapped out of his daze, grip on his phone tightening as his fingers tapped at the screen, gaze fixed on it. He stopped, hesitating a moment before pressing something on the screen and putting the phone to his ear, the look on his face darkening a little. Cassiel faintly heard a woman’s voice come from the phone, a frustrated sounding “what now, Dylan?” drifting from it.

"I didn’t want to call you, Hannah, I really didn’t," he said solemnly. "I’m so sorry, but I just… I had to call someone."

"What’re you talking about? Dylan?" ‘Hannah’ asked, the frustration in her voice turning into concern.

"I just feel so alone," Dylan choked out, tears tugging at the corners of his eyes again. "Everything’s changed, and it sucks. I don’t know who I am anymore, and I can’t do it. I just want it to be over."

A wave of panic rushed through Cassiel. He recognised this behaviour, these thought patterns, and he had _sworn_ to himself that he wouldn’t let it get that far. Hannah seemed equally as concerned, telling Dylan not to do anything stupid and that she was coming over. Dylan hung up the phone, sitting still in his bed for a few minutes just enjoying the silence of the room, the emptiness of the house, the stillness of the air. He was starting to feel like maybe he _was_ supposed to do this. Like now was the perfect time instead of him _thinking_ it was the perfect time. All the pieces were slotting together like the wooden train tracks he used to play with as a child; all he was waiting for was the train.

He got to his feet, padding towards the bathroom with a new found purpose. It was almost like he had been born for this moment, and he was not eager to let it go to waste. He didn’t want to disappoint whatever being or force it was that had put him on this Earth by not taking the bait presented before him in such impeccable circumstances. Cassiel wanted to help, wanted to stop him somehow, but he didn’t know how. If his friends couldn’t talk him out of it, not that Hannah had particularly tried, what good could a stranger do?

Cassiel couldn’t bring himself to watch when he saw what Dylan was doing to himself in the bathroom. He knew he _should_ watch, for the sake of his precious observation, but the idea of seeing one of his Father’s most loved creations hurting itself like that… It was enough to bring him to tears, falling down his vessel’s cheeks as steadily as the crimson blood dripped from Dylan’s forearms. Cassiel could hear someone knocking at the front door; Hannah, he expected, but Dylan didn’t move from his spot, watching as he stained the white basin red. So, for perhaps the first time, Cassiel resolved to step out of his comfort zone and interfere. He couldn’t help Dylan directly, that wasn’t within his repertoire, but he could open the door and allow Hannah access to the house. Perhaps, if he was quick enough, she might stand a chance of undoing some of his mistakes.

He listened as Hannah raced up the stairs trying to find her friend, listened to her initial panicked reaction, listened to her speaking with someone he couldn’t hear, and, finally, listened to her soft murmurs of attempted comfort as she waited for help to arrive. Until the sound of sirens were heard wailing outside, Cassiel kept expecting to come face to face with Azrael again, and he knew Azrael would be mad about this. If Michael or one of his other superiors didn’t punish him for it, Azrael certainly would, and Cassiel was scared of just what Azrael was capable of.

It wasn’t until a few days later that he went to observe Dylan again. The boy had been rushed to the nearest hospital, Hannah riding alongside him, and was slowly but steadily recovering from the physical damage. He had tried to pick his stitches out more times than not, but being away from Cassiel paired with having Hannah’s support once more seemed to be helping repair the injury to his mind. Cassiel almost felt bad for coming to see him again - he knew that if he left Dylan to his own devices he would recover just fine, and one day the experience would just be a far off memory - but the angel felt he owed Dylan some sort of apology, something to make amends for what he had put the boy through.

He waited until Hannah was gone – he wasn’t sure whether she had left the hospital or had simply left the room in search of food or a quiet moment to herself that Cassiel had noted humans often liked to take in times of trouble – before finally picking up the courage to enter Dylan’s room. The blonde was sleeping, judging by the steady rise and fall of his chest, the steady beeping of a heart monitor filling the otherwise silent room. He couldn’t help noting how peaceful the young human looked while he slept, far away from Cassiel and his meddling. He owed it to Dylan to ensure his waking moments were as peaceful as the time he spent in slumber.

But hadn’t his meddling put Dylan in this state in the first place? What if, by meddling again, he only worsened Dylan’s condition? That was the _last_ thing he wanted. Cassiel was torn, split down the middle clean in two, and he didn’t know what to do. His sense of divine justice – the same sense that flowed through each of his brothers and sisters – practically pleaded with him to fix his mistakes and to repent what could quite easily be considered a sin. If Dylan _had_ killed himself, would that not be considered murder on Cassiel’s part? And yet every other part of him, bar his conscience, was screaming at him to run, and to get as far away from Dylan as possible. He should never have interfered in the first place, and this whole thing would teach him for trying to get involved.

The faint sound of sheets rustling drew Cassiel out of his reverie, looking at Dylan in time to see the teen start to stir from his sleep. It was now or never then, the angel guessed. Somewhere in between the states of waking and slumber, human minds were able to comprehend things much more vast than their minds could comprehend in their normal state. It wasn’t perfect, and there was still a risk of vaporizing Dylan’s eyes completely, but it seemed the better alternative to appearing before him in human form. These humans never seemed to react too kindly to strangers seeing them at their weakest or their lowest, and Cassiel imagined that a suicide attempt would likely be considered a low point in Dylan’s life.

“Dylan,” he said softly, watching as the boy stirred a little more and hoping he didn’t fully wake up. There was some kind of medicine hooked up to him via an intravenous tube, and Cassiel could only hope that whatever it was would keep him sedated enough that didn’t reach full cognitive ability. If he did, he would _definitely_ lose his vision. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Dylan said groggily, rolling over in his bed a little to see who it was that was talking to him. He expected it to be a doctor, or a nurse, or a porter; just another one of the hundreds of medical professionals he had seen over the last few days.

“Are you still sad?” Cassiel asked, head cocked to one side slightly, and all Dylan could do in response was nod. “Would you like to be happy again?”

Dylan seemed to perk up a little at that, forcing himself to sit up a little straighter, though thankfully he still seemed to be as groggy as before. Cassiel knew he was running on borrowed time, but he understood there were certain social expectations he had to adhere to. He imagined he must have looked a little strange to the human, what with his winter jacket and woolly red scarf, but if Dylan found it strange at all, he didn’t show it.

“Are you death?” Dylan asked, trying to focus better on Cassiel. It felt like trying to look into the sun for too long, and he could barely open his eyes more than a squint. All he could make out was something bright red, and a vaguely humanoid shape.

“No, I am not death,” Cassiel spoke as softly as before, a quiet smile drifting onto his lips. “I am an angel, Dylan. I am here to help.”

“An angel?” Dylan asked with an almost musical laugh. “I guess there really is a God, huh?”

“There is,” Cassiel confirmed with a nod, “And He loves your kind dearly. He would not want to see you like this, Dylan, so I have come to help you.”

Cassiel kept it to himself that he wasn’t entirely sure _how_ he was going to help Dylan just yet. It would only make the boy nervous.  He had often wondered if he could choose to reverse his influence – it was in his skill set to gift loneliness, surely he could take it away as well – but he had never dared to try. It involved too much interference, too many sequences of events like the ones that had just unfolded in front of him.

“Help? What good is helping me now?” Dylan asked tersely, arms folding across his chest and tugging at the plastic tubing hooked up to his arm slightly. Cassiel could see the bandages wrapped around his wrist now, and it didn’t take a genius to guess that his flesh was delicately lined with sutures beneath the sterile white surface.

“There is always hope, Dylan, even when it feels like there isn’t,” Cassiel insisted. That was something he and his siblings believed intrinsically, and Cassiel wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a world that thought otherwise. "Do you want my help?"

Dylan was silent, and Cassiel worried he was waking up from his half-slumber, but the glazed over look in his eyes persisted, setting the angel at ease a little. As long as Dylan was in that strange in between state, the both of them were safe, though his ability to make decisions must have been somewhat altered thanks to it. If Cassiel was honest, even if Dylan didn’t want his help, he would still go ahead with his plan. The question itself had been purely cosmetic.

"Yes," Dylan mumbled after a while, his glassy eyes brimming with tears once more.

Cassiel had once thought tears were a sign of weakness - and who could blame him given how hard that sentiment had been drilled into him when he was still just a fledgling - but now, after seeing Dylan like this, he wasn’t quite so sure. Yes, he had tries to kill himself and yes, one could arguably consider that a sign of weakness, but here he was, still alive and asking for help. Cassiel and his siblings would _never_ directly ask for help like that. They were supposed to be God’s fearsome warriors, asking for help shouldn’t be something they needed to do, and Cassiel was starting to think they were weaker for it.

"Yes," Dylan repeated a little louder, as if he didn’t think Cassiel had heard him. "Please, I can’t… I can’t live like this."

Cassiel nodded silently, approaching Dylan without another word as the teen’s eyes drifted shut, whether from crying or exhaustion or the medication being pumped into his system. Cassiel reached out a hand cautiously, searching out any part of the boy he could put his hands on that had enough access to his mind and to his soul that Cassiel could try what he had in mind. He wasn’t even sure how to do what he had theorised, let alone whether it would work, but scientific ventures had to start somewhere, didn’t they? The thought that his fallen siblings must have mastered the same thing spurred him on further, his determination to help Dylan distracting him from what a dangerous thought that was.

He could feel Dylan’s sadness in his head, skulking around his brain like a thick blanket of tar and smoke, smothering each and every part of him piece by tiny piece. It was terrifying and, for lack of a better word, depressing. Cassiel was no stranger to sadness - his very existence boasted sadness and loneliness - but this was something he had never experienced, and it frightened him. More than that, it frightened him that something like this plagued humanity, because if his Father had made _everything_ , then that surely meant He had created this… illness, that ate at their minds and tortured their souls. What kind of _loving_ Father would unleash that upon His children?

Cassiel could feel his own influence practically wrapped around Dylan’s bones, buried so deep in the human that there was almost no hope of getting it out, but like any poison, all you had to do was inject an antidote. Cassiel gripped the thick, tarry mass inside Dylan’s head, watching as his influence uncoiled from Dylan’s skeleton and slithered through him to join it, thick inky tendrils wrapping around Cassiel’s hands. Was that what his influence looked like? He had known it was no good, but he had always imagined it to look not too dissimilar from his grace - brilliant white and glowing.

He pulled at it, easing it away from the boy’s soul until his hand was no longer against Dylan’s forehead and, as far as Cassiel could tell, the affliction was clear of his body and of his soul. He was by no means healed, he knew that, but without the cause, without him poisoning the human, he knew – or rather _hoped_ – that he would make a full recovery. Dylan’s breathing had fallen into the slow, steady rhythm of before, and Cassiel could only assume he had fallen asleep. Perhaps that was for the best, and when the boy awoke, he would wake anew.

With one last look at his sleeping form, and one last silent apology, Cassiel left.


End file.
